Princeton, New Jersey – Servion, a specialist Customer Experience (CX) solutions provider, today announced a strategic initiative with Verint® (NASDAQ: VRNT), The CX Automation Company, to enhance the delivery of Verint’s AI-powered Bot solutions. This collaboration builds upon Servion’s decade-long status as a Verint Gold Partner, further solidifying their commitment to providing cutting-edge AI-powered solutions.

Expanding Capabilities for Enhanced Agent Experience and Operational Efficiency

The initiative will leverage Servion’s extensive experience collaborating on the design, implementation, and support of Verint’s CX Automation solutions. This synergy aims to provide businesses with more robust, AI-driven bot solutions to enhance agent experience, boost productivity, and improve operational efficiency, ultimately driving competitive advantage, significant cost savings, and tangible business outcomes for clients.

Frank Tersigni, Chief Revenue Officer at Servion, expressed enthusiasm about the initiative: “We are excited to deepen our longstanding relationship with Verint through this strategic initiative. Verint Bots offer highly focused solutions that can be rapidly deployed, allowing organizations to realize outcomes quickly. By combining Servion’s implementation expertise with Verint’s innovative bot technology, we are poised to deliver unparalleled value to our clients, enabling them to swiftly enhance their customer and employee engagement strategies while achieving tangible AI business outcomes.”

Enhancing Agent and Customer Experience with AI

Verint Bots, powered by advanced AI, offer organizations the ability to automate interactions across various channels, improving response times and allowing human agents to focus on more complex and value-added tasks. The initiative with Servion will accelerate the adoption of these solutions, enabling more businesses to benefit from intelligent automation in their customer service operations.

Ken Archer, Channel Chief, Americas at Verint, commented on the collaboration: “Our strategic initiative with Servion marks a significant milestone in our decade-long partnership, during which we’ve successfully deployed workforce engagement and CX automation solutions to some of the largest organizations globally. Servion’s track record in implementing Verint solutions, combined with their CX and AI proficiency, positions them perfectly to expand the reach and impact of our AI bot solutions. Together, we will empower businesses to transform their customer engagement capabilities, improve agent experiences, and achieve new levels of operational efficiency in an increasingly digital world.”

About Servion

Servion is a specialist CX solutions provider, leveraging advanced AI and cloud technologies to enhance CX and EX. Specializing in complex environments, we’ve assisted over 600 enterprises and maintain a client NPS exceeding 80. Join us in driving success through innovative, compliance-critical CX solutions and long-term partnerships. Learn more at Servion.com.

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Launched in 2015, The TMCnet Workplace Excellence Awards for Tech Culture recognize those tech companies who excel in all areas of Corporate Culture, employee satisfaction and retention.

As hybrid workplaces have become the new normal, Corporate Culture has taken on a whole new meaning as companies and their Team Members adjust to teleworking, hybrid work schedules, and an abundance of teleconferences.

Servion proved to TMCnet’s editors and judges that they excel at keeping their team engaged, motivated, recognized for their achievements, and valued for their contributions to company goals.

Prakash Arunachalam, President & COO at Servion, said, “At Servion, we’ve always believed that our greatest asset is our people. Winning the TMCnet 2024 Workplace Excellence Award for Tech Culture is a testament to our commitment to fostering an environment where innovation thrives, and every team member feels valued. This recognition reaffirms our dedication to creating a workplace that not only attracts top talent but also nurtures their growth and creativity. Our unique culture is the driving force behind our ability to consistently deliver state-of-the-art CX solutions, solidifying our position as a trailblazer in the customer experience domain.”

“The mission of TMCnet’s Tech Culture Awards is quite simple. We have surveyed and selected companies who are taking steps to attract and retain the best and brightest tech talent – and are willing to go the extra mile to provide what they believe is the ideal tech culture”, said Rich Tehrani, TMC’s (News – Alert) CEO and Group Editor-in-Chief for TMCnet.

“Servion has demonstrated to the editors of TMCnet that they are committed to growth through providing a truly distinct and upbeat environment, rewarding employees for their contributions, and focusing on work-life balance. For that, we applaud and recognize them,” added Tehrani.

The complete list of 2024 Workplace Excellence Awards for Tech Culture winners are now posted on the Tech Culture blog on TMCnet.

About Servion

Servion is a specialist in customer experience (CX) solutions, excelling in complex, compliance-driven environments. As a consulting-led, vendor-agnostic global system integrator, Servion enhances CX by leveraging existing infrastructure and advanced technologies. Utilizing AI and cloud solutions, we significantly improve customer interactions. With a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 80, we focus on long-term relationships, helping over 600 enterprises migrate contact centers to the cloud, implement AI, integrate business applications, and optimize operations with our 24×7 managed services.

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The answer to this is straightforward: “Yes.” It is indeed real, with tangible use cases and substantial benefits. However, before delving into success stories, I’d like to provide some insight into the historical evolution and transformation of contact centers as a function over the past three decades.

Traditionally, contact centers were solely viewed as cost centers, and their key performance indicators (KPIs) revolved around optimization and efficiency enhancements. However, in the early 2000s, organizations began recognizing that customer churn resulted in significant revenue loss, and customer happiness was closely tied to customer service. This prompted a shift towards prioritizing customer satisfaction and first-call resolution as critical KPIs, moving away from average handling time (AHT) and agent volume. Simultaneously, the operational cost remained a crucial factor, leading to a focus on cross-selling and upselling to transform the contact center from a cost center to a revenue center, thereby transitioning the focus from customer satisfaction to customer experience.

In today’s social media-driven era, the rapid spread of negative news makes it more essential than ever to deliver seamless and effortless customer experiences across all channels. Negative sentiments can quickly go viral, while building trust and a strong brand reputation requires substantial time. Consequently, a single instance of customer churn can result in multiple defections and hinder new customer acquisitions.

Imagine AI stepping in not to replace the human touch, but to enrich it.

• AI aids in authenticating customers without the need for personally identifiable information (PII), thereby mitigating the risk of fraud.
• AI streamlines self-service across all channels, ensuring a consistent experience and alleviating the routine workload for contact center agents.
• AI supports all agents by providing consistent guidance on handling customer conversations, drawing from the expertise of top performers over the years. This reduces training time and enhances first-call resolution rates.
• AI analyzes all customer interactions, discerning positive, negative, and neutral experiences, along with their underlying reasons. This enables businesses to make quicker and more informed decisions.

Numerous other use cases are available to address industry-specific and organization-specific challenges.

Let’s explore five instances of how Servion has implemented contact center AI for clients in recent years, resulting in enhanced productivity, reduced costs, and improved customer satisfaction:

1. Asian Bank Revolutionizes Customer Service with Bilingual AI Voice Assistant

One of Asia’s fastest-growing private banks, with over 1,300 branches and a diverse customer base, faced overwhelmed contact centers handling 1.5 million calls annually. Servion developed and deployed Asia’s first AI-powered bilingual voice bot, understanding and responding to queries in Hindi and English. Integrated with five banking applications, this conversational AI bot enables quick self-service.

The results? The voice assistant now handles over 15 million calls yearly, recognizing customer intent with 83% accuracy. This has significantly improved IVR time, reduced call volumes, and enhanced customer experience.

Explore the complete case study for additional insights.

2. A leading UAE commercial bank elevates its customer experience to new heights

The client is a prominent full-service commercial bank in the United Arab Emirates, established in 1985. To stay at the forefront of the financial industry, the client sought to revolutionize its customer experience. They aimed to implement a state-of-the-art cloud contact center with omnichannel capabilities, personalized, proactive service, and a revenue-generating CCaaS module. Servion was chosen as the migration partner to design, develop, deliver, and maintain the CCaaS end-to-end solution with the latest features that help them achieve business objectives.

Servion delivered a comprehensive, multi-vendor, end-to-end solution for AI-enabled inbound and outbound channels, digital channels, voice biometrics authentication, and workforce optimization. This unified system functions as a single engine, offering state-of-the-art customer experiences.

The impact? The modern cloud solution improved customer interactions and reliability, boosting overall satisfaction. The migration led to ongoing cost savings, optimized resource management, and increased operational efficiency.

Explore the complete case study for additional insights.

3. Leading US Health Insurance Provider Embraces Flexible, Cloud-Ready Contact Center AI

A major U.S. health insurance provider sought to modernize customer service and transition to the cloud. Servion, partnering with Google Contact Center AI, implemented intelligent chatbots and voice bots. The Google CCAI connector was a key component, allowing the existing on-premise platform to utilize Google CCAI’s capabilities without immediate migration.

The impact? This channel-agnostic solution ensured consistent conversations across platforms, offering flexibility and compatibility with existing and potential future cloud systems. Agents were empowered with contextual information and sentiment analysis, leading to more informed interactions.

Explore the complete case study for additional insights.

4. Global Coffeehouse Chain Brews Success with Omnichannel Cloud Contact Center

A well-known multinational coffee retailer aimed to modernize customer service and internal communications. Servion, a global service delivery partner of Amazon Connect, implemented an omnichannel contact center. A Virtual Agent was implemented across the channels: Inbound Voice, Agentless outbound, SMS, and Chat to handle most repetitive self-service options.

Impact? A single platform provides an omnichannel experience to callers and agents: the introduction of a virtual agent improves troubleshooting and reduces resolution time.

Explore the complete case study for additional insights.

5. Leading stock brokerage firm in India resolves 80-85% of escalated cases using Interaction Analytics

A trusted and reliable stock broking firm in India, with a customer base of more than 10 million, had been experiencing a surge in legal and social media escalations from unhappy customers, resulting in significant adverse publicity. They wanted to understand the underlying causes of these dissatisfied customers. Servion partnered with an AI startup to provide a localized Interaction Analytics solution to uncover the reasons for escalations and drivers for negative sentiment.

Impact? With 100% interaction analytics and detailed reports, automated alerts were sent to the relevant team with escalation notifications, which were further neutralized by the team owners. This proactive approach successfully resolved about 85% of the daily escalations. This solution also reduced 47% of the firm’s compliance audit time.

Explore the complete case study for additional insights.

These case studies illustrate the transformative power of AI in contact centers. From automating tasks to providing deep customer insights, AI empowers agents, improves efficiency, and elevates the customer experience. As we look ahead, AI will continue to shape the future of customer service. Be tuned to read about how GenAI is in Contact Center: Real or Bubble.

Discover how Servion’s advanced contact center AI solutions can transform your customer service operations. Schedule a call with our CX experts to explore the possibilities today!

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1. Importance of Evaluating Real-World Usage

While impressive product demonstrations can be influential, the true value of CCaaS is realized when your agents actively use the platform on the ground. Conducting proof-of-concepts (POCs) and selecting the most suitable solution is vital for the success of your migration.

When evaluating a solution, always:

• Understand the overall architecture and evaluate if it matches your enterprise architecture vision.
• Align the roadmap with your organization’s customer service goals.
• Review the AI strategy of your provider to ensure it fits your plans and policies for using AI in CX improvement.
• Check if your provider offers a “try-and-buy” option, allowing you to experience firsthand the benefits and limitations of different CCaaS platforms for informed decision-making.

While these are critical aspects to consider, there are additional evaluation criteria and best practices to review. Servion can help craft an RFP after conducting discovery sessions and support the RFP process, including gap analysis and roadmap reviews, to aid in decision-making.

2. Evaluating Core Contact Center Functionality

CCaaS platforms offer a range of features and capabilities, but it is essential to scrutinize their core automatic call distributor (ACD) functionalities. Some organizations find that certain aspects of ACD in CCaaS solutions may not be as robust as their on-premises counterparts. While the functionality may be “good enough,” it is crucial to compare it against your existing system to ensure it meets your specific needs.

Not everything with on-premises technology can be migrated on day one with an apple-to-apple comparison, and sometimes it is unnecessary when looking at your organization’s overall vision. Hence, building a migration strategy that best suits your organization’s goals is a critical first step.

3. Integration Considerations: Self-Services and CRM

Integrating self-service capabilities and CRM systems with CCaaS platforms is generally straightforward. However, if your organization relies on custom-built CRMs or other toolsets, careful enterprise architecture planning becomes vital before choosing and migrating to a specific CCaaS provider. Properly aligning your existing billing systems and their integrations with your future CCaaS solution will minimize disruption and optimize efficiency.

4. Understanding the Limitations of CCaaS

It is important to acknowledge that CCaaS may not provide all the features and functionalities of your legacy on-premises platform. Features like voicemail, call recording for internal agents, or comprehensive unified communications (UC) capabilities might not be readily available in native CCaaS solutions. In large enterprises, existing legacy CC solutions often coexist with UC solutions, requiring deep UC functionalities for contact center queues and routing.

Sometimes migrating directly to a CCaaS provider’s call recording and workforce management solution can lead to additional costs for managing legacy call recording solutions to maintain compliance due to interoperability limitations. Therefore, envisioning a roadmap for your overall UC and WFO strategy, and considering how CCaaS fits into your broader communication and employee management ecosystem, is crucial.

5. Preserving Years of Innovations

As a Contact Center Technology Administrator or a company striving for CX improvement, significant time and effort have been invested in innovating your existing contact center technology stack and associated ecosystem. Some innovations have proven successful for your organization and your end customers. However, not all aspects will be easily available or aligned with a CCaaS platform on day one. You might want to integrate some of your “best wins” into your CCaaS platform, such as:

• Screen pops to home-grown billing systems.
• Onboarding and offboarding agent integrations.
• Outbound lead generation, DNC sourcing, and scrubbing.
• Compliance and security controls applied enterprise-wide.
• IVR integration and lookup layers towards different back-office platforms.
• Self-service functionalities tightly integrated with your CRM and billing tools.

6. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and Billing Routines

Implementing CCaaS often promises substantial upfront cost savings. However, it is important to assess the long-term expenses associated with the chosen solution. While the basic features of CCaaS may be competitively priced, additional functionalities can sometimes come at a premium. Properly baseline your feature requirements to accurately evaluate the TCO, considering both short-term gains and long-term sustainability.

Servion can help understand usage policies and caveats with each pricing model, ensuring that usage is monitored to avoid billing shocks. Having the right partner to assist with adopting features and day-to-day configurations is crucial. Remember, each feature can be easily enabled in the cloud but must follow best practices to ensure reasonable use is considered each month by the CCaaS provider.

Adopting a well-planned migration approach is essential to ensure the smooth transition of your innovations.

Overall, understanding the realities of CCaaS and architecting your solutions stack effectively is key to a stable and successful CCaaS migration. Cloud success is less about tools and more about strategy, particularly having a partner who ensures your cloud strategy drives business value. The right provider will act as a partner, supporting core aspects of your cloud journey, including customer journey design (automation, self-service), agent/employee experience (analytics, workforce engagement), operational intelligence (proactive engagement), contact center optimization (digital customer service), and productivity and cost.

Servion’s breadth of technology solutions, capabilities, and expertise uniquely positions us to handle any customer’s specific cloud needs. We help develop the right approach by ensuring clarity on the desired business outcome, utilizing our industry-leading talent to address core business issues along the way.

• Consultation-led vendor-agnostic approach focused on achieving business goals.
• Certification and expertise across a wide range of leading platforms (Cisco, Amazon Connect, NICE, Genesys, etc.) and applications (Verint, NICE, Calabrio, Google, etc.) enable us to plan, design, and support cloud solutions aligned with customers’ specific CX and business requirements.
• Large team of certified engineers spread globally.
• Proven cloud migration methodology and accelerators that minimize risk and ensure fast go-to-market.
• Industry-leading 24×7 managed services go far beyond traditional support.

Move to the cloud with confidence. Schedule a Meeting to continue the conversation with Servion’s team of cloud experts.

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One of the critical applications of AI in customer experience is intelligent chatbots. These chatbots, powered by AI, can engage in natural language processing and provide instant and personalized responses to customer queries. By understanding customer intent and context, these chatbots can deliver accurate and relevant information, reducing the need for human intervention.

Enhancing Customer Experience with AI: Key Benefits

AI adoption in CX brings forth a myriad of benefits for businesses. Firstly, AI-powered automation enables contact centers to handle a large volume of customer interactions efficiently. With chatbots taking care of routine queries, human agents can focus on more complex and high-value interactions, improving customer satisfaction.

Secondly, AI allows round-the-clock support. Virtual agents, driven by AI, can provide 24/7 assistance, ensuring that customers receive timely help regardless of the time zone or working hours. This enhances customer experience and reduces the need for staffing costs associated with extended operating hours.

Furthermore, AI leverages data to gain actionable insights. With machine learning algorithms, contact centers can analyze vast customer data, including call recordings, chat transcripts, and social media interactions. These insights can help identify trends, improve agent performance, and make data-driven decisions to enhance overall operations.

AI Adoption – Success Stories

Several contact centers have already embraced AI and reaped its benefits. For example, a leading private bank implemented an AI-powered bilingual voice bot powered by automatic speech recognition, natural language processing, and text-to-speech technology to enable self-service and enhance CX. This voicebot solution handled over 40% of the call volumes and reduced IVR time by 10%.

Similarly, an American multinational coffee and baked goods chain migrated to a cloud contact center solution with inbuilt AI to reduce outbound calling costs and provide consistent CX for customers across channels. Intelligent Virtual Assistants (IVAs) were deployed for outbound channels for reminders and confirmations. IVAs also ensured skill-based routing to agents for all incoming voice, chat, and SMS interactions.

These case studies highlight the transformative power of AI in contact centers. By embracing AI, businesses can enhance customer experiences, drive operational efficiency, and achieve business growth.

Integrating AI in your Customer Experience Strategies

Integrating and adopting AI your customer experience practice requires careful planning and execution. Here are some steps to consider:

• Assess your current infrastructure: Evaluate your existing contact center infrastructure and determine its readiness for AI implementation. Ensure that your systems can integrate with AI-powered tools and platforms seamlessly.
• Identify pain points: Identify the pain points in your contact center operations that AI can address. Whether it’s reducing wait times, improving first-call resolution, or enhancing agent productivity, understanding your specific needs will help you choose the right AI solutions.
• Select the right AI tools: There are numerous AI-powered tools available in the market, each offering different functionalities. Research and select the tools that align with your contact center’s goals and requirements. Look for natural language processing, sentiment analysis, and predictive analytics features.
• Pilot test and iterate: Before implementing AI across your entire contact center, conduct pilot tests to evaluate the performance of the AI tools. Monitor the results and iterate to fine-tune the system and ensure optimal performance.
• Train and upskill agents: As you introduce AI into your contact center, it’s crucial to train and upskill your agents. Provide them with the necessary training to understand how AI works, how to collaborate with AI-powered tools, and how to handle more complex customer interactions.
• Monitor and optimize: Once AI is implemented, continuously monitor its performance and gather feedback from agents and customers. Use this feedback to optimize the system and make necessary adjustments to improve its effectiveness.

Following these steps, ensures successful AI adoption and enables you to unlock its full potential.

Common challenges in AI Adoption

While the benefits of AI are undeniable, there are also challenges that organizations may face during the adoption process. Some common challenges include:

• Resistance to change: Introducing AI into an established contact center may face resistance from agents who fear job displacement. It’s crucial to communicate the benefits of AI and assure agents that AI is meant to enhance their capabilities, not replace them.
• Data quality and privacy: AI relies on vast amounts of data to learn and make accurate predictions. Ensuring data quality and confidentiality is essential to prevent biased or inaccurate results. Implement robust data governance policies and adhere to data protection regulations.
• Integration with legacy systems: Integrating AI-powered tools with existing contact center systems can be complex. It’s essential to ensure compatibility and seamless integration to avoid disruptions in operations.
• Customer acceptance and trust: Some customers may be skeptical about interacting with AI-powered chatbots. Organizations must build confidence by providing transparent information about AI usage and ensuring a seamless transition between AI and human agents when necessary.

By proactively addressing these challenges, organizations can overcome barriers and successfully implement AI in their contact centers.

Best Practices in AI Adoption

To maximize the benefits of AI in contact centers, here are some best practices to follow:

• Start small: Begin with a pilot project to test the effectiveness of AI in addressing specific pain points. This approach allows for incremental implementation and reduces the risk of disruption to existing operations.
• Focus on customer experience: Prioritize customer experience throughout the AI implementation process. Ensure that AI-powered tools deliver personalized and accurate responses, enhancing the overall customer journey.
• Provide seamless handoffs between AI and human agents: While AI can handle routine queries, there will be instances where human intervention is necessary. Implement a smooth transition between AI and human agents to provide a seamless and personalized customer experience.
• Continuously optimize: AI systems require continuous monitoring and optimization to ensure their effectiveness. Regularly review performance metrics, gather feedback from agents and customers, and make necessary adjustments to improve the AI implementation.
• Measure success: Define relevant key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of AI implementation. Monitor metrics such as customer satisfaction scores, average handling time, and first-call resolution rates to assess the impact of AI on contact center operations.

By following these best practices, organizations can integrate AI seamlessly and drive significant improvements in customer experience and operational efficiency.

In conclusion, AI is revolutionizing contact centers and reshaping how businesses interact with customers. By embracing AI-powered automation, companies can streamline operations, reduce costs, and improve customer satisfaction. From intelligent chatbots that provide instant and personalized responses to virtual agents that offer round-the-clock support, AI brings numerous benefits to contact centers. By leveraging machine learning algorithms, contact centers can analyze vast amounts of data to gain actionable insights and make data-driven decisions. However, implementing AI in contact centers comes with its own set of challenges.

Servion is at the forefront of transforming contact centers by harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (AI). With a comprehensive suite of AI-driven solutions, Servion empowers businesses to optimize customer service operations, enhance customer interactions, and boost overall efficiency. Through advanced AI chatbots, voicebots, speech analytics, virtual assistants, and GenAI, Servion enables enterprises to automate routine tasks, streamline inquiries, and provide real-time customer support, all while reducing operational costs.

Servion’s AI-driven analytics and predictive insights help businesses gain valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences, enabling personalized and data-driven decision-making. By engaging with Servion, enterprises can expect to unlock the potential of AI in their contact centers, leading to improved customer satisfaction, increased agent productivity, and, ultimately, greater competitiveness in today’s dynamic market landscape.

The post What is AI in the context of Customer Experience? appeared first on Servion Blog.

With technology playing an ever more vital role in the corporate world, companies are looking for new ways to stay ahead of the competition, and the C-Zentrix + Servion collaboration will offer brands just what they need.

This exciting partnership represents a significant milestone for both companies. C-Zentrix has long been a leader in customer experience solutions, and this collaboration will bolster its market dominance. Servion, India will empower its customers with a complete range of AI-powered contact center solutions.

Baljit Singh, SVP – Sales, India & APAC, Servion, said, “We are delighted to partner with C-Zentrix, one of the leading cloud-based, omnichannel contact center solutions. This partnership with C-Zentrix further reinforces Servion’s commitment to delivering innovative and personalized experiences, building lifetime customers, and increasing customer value. This partnership would be beneficial, especially for small and mid-sized businesses in the India and APAC region that are looking for a cloud-based omnichannel contact center solution.”

Commenting on the partnership, Saket Setu, CEO of C-Zentrix said, “We at C-Zentrix are excited about this new partnership with Servion India. C-Zentrix has been a specialist in customer experience with its voice-driven call center platform to digital, Omnichannel, and AI in Contact Center solutions. With this collaboration, we are expecting to reach out to enterprise customers and have a wider presence in BFSI and retail segments. Servion India has a very strong team and market presence, and this partnership will enrich both the companies.”

This collaboration aims to address the growing demand for outbound and inbound calling processes, and automated solutions that enable brands to offer a superior customer experience. The goal is to offer brands an exemplary interactive experience, with the power of artificial intelligence and next-generation cloud solutions at their fingertips.

The future looks bright as we embark on this journey to offer innovative and AI-powered solutions to brands across the globe.

This collaboration aims to address the growing demand for automated solutions that enable brands to offer a superior customer experience. The goal is to offer brands an exemplary interactive experience, with the power of artificial intelligence and next-generation cloud solutions at their fingertips.

The future looks bright as we embark on this journey to offer innovative and AI-powered solutions to brands across the globe.

About C-Zentrix:

C-Zentrix is a global leader in providing end-to-end omnichannel customer engagement solutions. With over 1500+ satisfied customers across the world, C-Zentrix has established itself as a trusted brand in the customer experience domain. The platform is highly flexible and customizable, enabling brands to integrate it with any CRM, ticketing CRM, or lead management system for a seamless 360-degree customer engagement experience. It enables brands to manage their customer support teams using C-Zentrix CCaaS (cloud) and On-premise contact center solutions to streamline customer service operations.

C-Zentrix offers robust omnichannel capabilities such as Voice, IVR, Dialers, Video, Email, Chat, WhatsApp, and Social Media. With these features, brands can interact with customers across various channels and deliver a consistent customer experience.

C-Zentrix also offers AI in the Contact Center with the power of Generative AI. Various solutions like chatbots, voicebots, agent assistants, live call analytics, post-call analytics, summarizers, and sentiment analysis.

C-Zentrix has a dedicated team of experts to provide 24×7 customer support and work closely with clients to understand their unique requirements and deliver customized solutions. Thus a powerful and reliable platform that helps brands transform their customer engagement operations and deliver exceptional customer experiences. For more information, visit https://www.c-zentrix.com

About Servion India:

For more than 25 years, Servion has been trusted by customer-centric brands for architecting, implementing, and managing Contact Centers and Customer Experience (CX) solutions. Servion delivers complete solutions for businesses to innovate in providing digital experiences using the best available technologies while maximizing their existing investments. Our 1,100 CX professionals apply their passion and deep domain expertise to the entire build-run-optimized solution lifecycle. Servion has helped 600 enterprises worldwide deliver great experiences to their customers, partners, and employees. For more information, visit https://www.servion.com.

The post C-Zentrix Partners with Servion to offer cloud-based omnichannel and AI-powered contact center solutions in India appeared first on Servion Blog.

A good rule of thumb is that an average call AHT is about 6 minutes, but it is very variable between different businesses. The proportion of talk, hold, and after-call work time also varies: some contact centers do their utmost to avoid transfers, in others after-call work is minimal.

How should you think about AHT, the most venerable KPI in the contact center world,  in this age of technology disruption?

There are strong advantages to keeping AHT front and center:

1. Quality and Efficiency Indicator: AHT, along with metrics like First Contact Resolution (FCR), reflects the efficiency and quality of customer service operations. It emphasizes the importance of time in resolving each case and the need for well-trained agents with the right tools.
2. Customer Experience Foundation: Respecting customers’ time is fundamental to a positive customer experience. Lower AHT can lead to quicker resolution of customer queries, reduced waiting times, and lower overhead costs, thereby increasing customer satisfaction.
3. Business Impact: A lower AHT positively influences the Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), which is vital for business growth and customer retention.

However, AHT is not a panacea:

1. Not One-Size-Fits-All: AHT varies significantly across industries and depends on factors like company culture, industry standards, and the complexity of products or services supported. Blindly reducing AHT without considering these factors may not yield the desired results.
2. Misinterpreted Focus: Reducing AHT doesn’t always equate to improved service. The focus should be on optimizing call times while maintaining or enhancing satisfaction levels, not just on reducing the duration of calls.

The Influence of Digital Channels and Chatbots on AHT is increasing:

1. AI-Powered Knowledge Bases and Agent Assist: AI-based solutions using Natural Language Processing (NLP) can significantly reduce the average call handling time by providing agents with the right information quickly, thus reducing the need for multiple screen navigations.
2. Conversational AI and In-Call Assistance: Real-time AI assistance, such as suggestions based on what the customer is saying, can help agents resolve customer issues more efficiently, reducing the time taken to handle each interaction.
3. Chatbots and Self-Service: Intelligent chatbots and self-service options can handle routine customer interactions, deflect calls from more expensive channels, and route complex queries to human agents with full context. This approach reduces AHT and enhances First Contact Resolution (FCR).
4. Automation of After-Call Work: Automating tasks like call summaries and categorization can significantly lower AHT and improve accuracy, yielding cost reductions while enhancing customer satisfaction.
5. AI-Based Agent Coaching: Using AI to analyze post-call interactions can provide valuable insights for agent coaching, which in turn can help reduce AHT and improve overall customer satisfaction.

Conclusion

AHT remains a relevant and valuable metric in contact centers, balancing customer satisfaction with operational efficiency. However, the focus should be optimizing AHT rather than merely reducing it. The advent of AI, chatbots, and digital channels has provided powerful tools to achieve this balance, enhancing both the efficiency of agents and the satisfaction of customers. As technology evolves, so does the approach to managing AHT, emphasizing understanding customer needs and agent capabilities.

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1. Infrastructure Demands

• EVs: The widespread adoption of electric vehicles hinges on the availability of charging infrastructure. Consumers hesitate to purchase EVs due to concerns about the availability of charging stations, especially for long-distance travel. This “range anxiety” is a major barrier.
• AI: Similarly, AI’s effectiveness in customer experience is contingent on the availability of quality data. AI systems require vast amounts of data to learn and make accurate decisions, which can be a significant hurdle for companies lacking data infrastructure.

2. Technological Maturity and Reliability

• EVs: EV technology, particularly battery life and efficiency, is still evolving. Concerns about battery life, charging time, and vehicle longevity deter potential buyers who are used to the perceived reliability and established maintenance protocols of traditional combustion engines.
• AI: In AI, the challenge is developing systems that can understand and interpret human emotions and nuances effectively. The fear of AI making erroneous decisions due to a lack of contextual understanding can be a deterrent in customer-facing applications.

3. Public Perception and Trust

• EVs: Public perception of EVs is often shaped by concerns over their performance, cost, and environmental impact. Building trust in the technology is essential for wider acceptance.
• AI: Trust is also a critical factor for AI adoption in customer experience. There are concerns about privacy, data security, and the ethical use of AI. Overcoming these fears requires transparent and responsible AI development.

4. Cost and Accessibility

• EVs: The initial cost of EVs is typically higher than traditional vehicles, making them less accessible to a broader market. Although long-term savings are a selling point, the upfront cost is a significant barrier.
• AI: Implementing AI solutions can be expensive and resource-intensive, especially for small to medium-sized businesses. The cost of developing or acquiring AI technology and training staff can be prohibitive.

5. Regulatory and Policy Challenges

• EVs: EV adoption is influenced by government policies, incentives, and regulations around emissions. The pace of regulatory changes can either accelerate or hinder adoption.
• AI: AI faces its own set of regulatory challenges, particularly around privacy and data usage. The lack of clear regulations can create uncertainty for businesses looking to integrate AI into customer experiences.

Electric Vehicles and Artificial Intelligence in customer experience are at a pivotal point. Both technologies face significant challenges that mirror each other in terms of infrastructure needs, technological maturity, public perception, cost, and regulatory hurdles. Understanding these challenges is crucial for stakeholders to navigate the path toward wider adoption and leverage these technologies’ full potential. As both EVs and AI evolve, their integration into our daily lives seems inevitable, but the journey there will require addressing these critical obstacles.

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Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems have long been a staple in customer service, but rising customer expectations demand a shift toward more advanced solutions. Traditional IVRs often fail to deliver an effortless experience, resulting in customer dissatisfaction. However, the emergence of next-generation IVR systems, called Conversational IVR, can potentially revolutionize the customer experience.

Conversational IVRs should build upon the foundation that traditional IVRs have laid out. IVRs provide rich data about customer habits, needs, and interactions. This data goldmine will be even more powerful when activated with modern technology.

Let’s explore the steps in migrating from traditional IVR to conversational IVR and how businesses can leverage this technology to enhance customer service operations in terms of quality and cost.

Understanding the Difference: Traditional IVR vs. Conversational IVR

Traditional IVR systems require callers to navigate through hierarchical menus using touch-tone inputs. In contrast, Conversational IVR uses natural language processing and understanding (NLU) to enable callers to have less rigid, more human-like conversations with the system. Conversational IVR comprehends the context and substance of conversations, such as entities and intents, allowing for a more intuitive and personalized customer experience. This shift towards conversational interactions eliminates the need for customers to endure complex navigation and improves overall satisfaction.

The Need for Migrating to Conversational IVR

Research has shown that a negative IVR experience can drive away potential customers, with 83% of customers avoiding businesses after such an encounter. To address this issue, companies must invest in conversational platforms that leverage AI and NLU to provide enhanced customer service. By 2025, it is predicted that 30% of major enterprises will adopt a single conversational platform for customer service and employee effectiveness.

The opportunity is here; here is a step-by-step guide.

Steps to Migrate from Traditional to Conversational IVR

1. Conduct an Audit of Current IVR System: Begin by auditing your existing IVR system to identify its strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. Hire external experts to review menu structures, call volumes, IVR usage, and promptings. This audit will help uncover issues that frustrate callers, such as convoluted menus, unclear messages, and ineffective speech recognition.

2. Examine IVR and Routing Statistics: Analyze your IVR and routing statistics to gain insights into the customer experience. Look for indicators of misrouting issues, high transfer rates, long waiting times, and repeated calls from customers. Addressing these issues, such as merging low-traffic options and queues or implementing strategies to reduce waiting times, can significantly improve customer satisfaction.

3. Leverage Insights from Contact Center Agents: Contact center agents possess valuable knowledge about your customers’ experiences and pain points with the IVR. Engage in conversations with your agents to understand customer needs, challenges, and areas where the IVR falls short. Their insights can inform improvements in the existing IVR system and guide the implementation of the conversational IVR.

4. Seek Customer Feedback: Directly engage with your customers to understand their contact preferences, pain points, and experiences with the IVR. Conversations with customers can help identify common questions and issues, which can be used to train the AI-powered conversational IVR for natural language understanding and automated issue resolution.

5. Conduct Requirements Gathering: Based on the insights gathered, develop a detailed list of requirements for the conversational IVR implementation. Consider business challenges, objectives, functional requirements, and the company’s culture. Evaluate options such as migration, replacement, incremental migration, or separate voice and text operations, focusing on the desired business results rather than just technical considerations.

6. Define Key Metrics and Measurement Methods: Clearly define the key metrics that will determine the success of your conversational IVR implementation. Decide on the measurement methods and agree on the expected improvements in customer satisfaction, call containment rate, waiting times, and other relevant factors. Regularly monitor and analyze these metrics to track the effectiveness of your conversational IVR.

7. Minimize Disruption to Customer Operations: Minimize disruption to your customers’ operations during migration. Ensure a smooth transition by providing clear communication and support throughout the implementation. Consider implementing a phased approach, gradually introducing new features and functionalities while maintaining a seamless customer experience.

8. Integrate with Other Communication Channels: To provide an omnichannel customer experience, integrate your conversational IVR with other communication channels, such as chatbots, web interfaces, and mobile applications. This integration ensures consistency and allows customers to choose their preferred communication method while enjoying the benefits of conversational interactions.

9. Leverage Customer Data: Take advantage of customer data to offer personalized options and improve the efficiency of the IVR system. Proper management and organization of customer information, such as through a CRM solution, enables the retrieval of customer profiles and the provision of relevant and dynamic options. Utilize caller ID (CLID) to match callers with their profiles and retrieve their information automatically.

10. Track Customer Journeys: Implement mechanisms to track and log customer activities across channels, enabling proactive and personalized interactions. This tracking allows for identifying customer journeys and facilitates the provision of relevant options and follow-ups based on previous interactions. While this may require significant investments, it is crucial for an effective omnichannel strategy.

11. Continuously Improve and Optimize: Embrace a continuous improvement and optimization culture for your conversational IVR system. Regularly analyze customer feedback, monitor key metrics, and leverage AI and machine learning capabilities to refine and enhance the system’s performance. Stay updated with advancements in conversational AI technology to ensure your IVR remains at the forefront of customer service.

12. Provide Training and Support: Equip your contact center agents with the necessary training and support to handle interactions with the conversational IVR effectively. Emphasize the importance of leveraging the system’s capabilities, understanding customer needs, and providing seamless assistance when required. Continuous training and support will ensure optimal utilization of the conversational IVR and deliver a superior customer experience.

Conclusion

Migrating from traditional IVR to conversational IVR is a strategic imperative for businesses seeking to enhance customer experience and meet rising expectations. By conducting an audit, leveraging customer and agent insights, and implementing a phased approach, organizations can transition seamlessly to a conversational IVR system. Integration with other communication channels, leveraging customer data, and continuous improvement are critical factors in achieving a genuinely personalized and efficient customer service solution. Embrace the power of conversational IVR to exceed customer expectations and drive business success in the era of advanced customer service technology.

The post How to migrate from traditional to conversational IVR appeared first on Servion Blog.

Let’s explore the reasons behind the persistence of inadequate customer service and discuss potential solutions to improve the customer experience.

The Impact of Poor Customer Service

Before delving into the reasons behind subpar customer service, it is essential to understand the impact it can have on businesses. According to a study by Hubspot, 93% of customers are likely to make repeat purchases from companies that provide excellent customer service. On the other hand, poor customer service can lead to customer churn, negative word-of-mouth, and damage to a company’s reputation.

Decreased Customer Satisfaction

One of the most significant consequences of poor customer service is decreased customer satisfaction. When customers encounter unresponsive representatives, long wait times, or unhelpful interactions, their satisfaction levels plummet. This dissatisfaction can lead to frustration, negative perceptions of the brand, and ultimately, a loss of trust.

Negative Word-of-Mouth

Customers who have had negative experiences with a company’s customer service are more likely to share their experiences with others. With the rise of social media and online review platforms, dissatisfied customers now have a wide-reaching platform to voice their complaints. Negative word-of-mouth can quickly spread and influence potential customers’ decisions, impacting a company’s bottom line.

Brand Reputation

Customer service plays a crucial role in shaping a brand’s reputation. Companies known for excellent customer service, such as Zappos and Amazon, have built a strong reputation and a loyal customer base. Conversely, brands (we all have some names in mind) with a reputation for poor customer service often struggle to attract and retain customers.

Understanding the Root Causes of Poor Customer Service

To address the issue of poor customer service effectively, it is vital to identify the underlying causes. Let’s explore some common reasons why customer service can fall short of expectations.

Lack of Employee Training and Empowerment

One of the primary reasons for inadequate customer service is a lack of proper training and empowerment for frontline employees. Customer service representatives must be equipped with the necessary knowledge, skills, and tools to handle customer inquiries and resolve issues effectively. Without adequate training, employees may struggle to provide satisfactory solutions, leading to customer frustration.

High Employee Turnover

High employee turnover can significantly impact customer service quality. When employees leave the company frequently, it results in a constant influx of new hires who may not possess the experience or knowledge to deliver exceptional customer service. Additionally, turnover can lead to inconsistencies in service quality and a lack of familiarity with the company’s products or services.

Insufficient Resources and Support

Another common barrier to providing excellent customer service is a lack of resources and support. This can manifest in various ways, such as limited staffing, outdated technology systems, or inadequate customer service channels. Insufficient resources can hinder a company’s ability to respond promptly to customer inquiries, resulting in longer wait times and diminished customer satisfaction.

Ineffective Communication and Coordination

Effective communication and coordination are essential for delivering seamless customer service experiences. However, when departments within an organization operate in silos or fail to communicate effectively, it can lead to disjointed customer service interactions. This lack of coordination can result in customers having to repeat information or experiencing delays in issue resolution.

Inadequate Feedback and Performance Metrics

Without comprehensive feedback mechanisms and performance metrics, businesses may struggle to identify areas for improvement and measure their customer service effectiveness. Clear feedback loops, customer satisfaction surveys, and performance metrics are essential to track customer service quality, identify pain points, and implement necessary changes.

Strategies for Improving Customer Service

Now that we have explored the root causes of poor customer service, let’s discuss potential strategies to enhance the customer experience and overcome these challenges.

Prioritize Employee Training and Development

Investing in comprehensive employee training and development programs is crucial for equipping frontline staff with the skills and knowledge needed to provide exceptional customer service. Ongoing training can help employees stay up-to-date with product or service offerings, enhance their problem-solving abilities, and improve their communication skills.

Foster a Customer-Centric Culture

Creating a customer-centric culture is essential for ensuring that customer service remains a top priority throughout the organization. This involves aligning employees’ goals and incentives with customer satisfaction metrics, encouraging a customer-focused mindset, and recognizing and rewarding exceptional customer service efforts.

Implement Robust Feedback Mechanisms

Establishing robust feedback mechanisms, such as customer satisfaction surveys, can provide valuable insights into areas for improvement. Regularly collecting feedback from customers allows businesses to identify pain points, address specific issues, and continuously enhance their customer service offerings.

Leverage Technology and Automation

Technology can play a significant role in improving customer service efficiency and effectiveness. Implementing customer relationship management (CRM) systems, chatbots, and self-service portals can help streamline customer interactions, reduce wait times, and provide customers with quick and accurate solutions to their queries.

Foster Cross-Departmental Collaboration

Encouraging collaboration and communication between departments is crucial for delivering seamless customer service. Implementing shared knowledge bases, fostering cross-departmental meetings, and breaking down silos can enable employees to access the information they need to serve customers effectively.

Set Clear Performance Metrics

Establishing clear performance metrics aligned with customer service goals is essential for tracking progress and driving improvement. Key performance indicators (KPIs) such as average response time, customer satisfaction scores, and first-call resolution rates can provide insights into customer service performance and guide efforts to enhance the customer experience.

Conclusion

In conclusion, while businesses have made significant strides in improving customer service, challenges persist. Poor customer service can have detrimental effects on customer satisfaction, brand reputation, and the bottom line. By addressing root causes such as employee training, resource allocation, communication, and feedback mechanisms, businesses can enhance their customer service offerings and deliver exceptional experiences. Embracing a customer-centric culture and leveraging technology can further amplify these efforts, ensuring that customer service remains a competitive advantage in today’s business landscape.

Bad customer service is not a fatality; it is a choice that companies make. There are simple and proven methods for improving customer service; whether or not a company decide to improve or not is a management decision.

The post Why is customer service still a challenge in today’s business landscape? appeared first on Servion Blog.

The Rise of Remote Call Centers

The rising popularity of remote call centers can be attributed to several factors. The availability of advanced VoIP phone systems and cloud-based software has enabled professionals to work from virtually anywhere in the world. Improved domestic internet services have further facilitated the transition to remote work, empowering individuals to become self-sufficient agents in the comfort of their own homes.

While the cost-effectiveness of remote call centers is an undeniable advantage, there are challenges that companies must address to ensure their success. One such challenge is the difficulty of delivering training and ongoing support in a virtual setting. Communication can become a hurdle when issues need to be resolved promptly, and the accountability of remote agents may be compromised, leading to decreased motivation and performance.

Tips for Effective Remote Call Center Management

Managing a remote call center requires careful planning and execution. Here are five tips to help you maximize the potential of your virtual team:

1. Set Your Remote Agents Up for Success

To ensure the success of your remote agents, it is crucial to provide them with the necessary tools and resources. Equip them with working equipment such as headsets and dual monitors, and ensure they have a reliable broadband connection to avoid service disruptions. Additionally, establish appropriate security measures and guide them in setting up a dedicated workspace to maintain employee performance in a hybrid or remote work environment.

2. Hire the Right Agents

Selecting the right professionals for your remote call center is essential. Align your hiring process with your business values and identify the specific talent profile and knowledge base required. With the flexibility of remote work, you have the opportunity to hire the best talent worldwide, regardless of their geographic location or niche expertise.

3. Create an Effective Onboarding & Training Strategy

Investing in the development of your remote agents is key to their success. Design a comprehensive onboarding strategy that aligns with your call center’s business goals. Implement continuous learning and development programs to enhance their capabilities and equip them with the skills to provide confident service. Utilize remote training software and create clear process documentation and knowledge sharing platforms to foster a self-reliant and productive workforce.

4. Use Tools for Better Communication

Maintaining open lines of communication with your remote workers is crucial for their engagement and motivation. Leverage technology solutions such as web-conferencing tools, team collaboration apps, and task management platforms to facilitate quick check-ins, team collaboration, and foster a sense of teamwork and company culture. These tools bridge the gap created by working from home and ensure effective communication within your remote call center team.

5. Set Boundaries

Promoting work-life balance and ensuring the well-being of your remote agents is essential. Include guidance on self-care and rest in your training package, emphasizing the importance of setting healthy boundaries. Create an effective remote work policy that sets clear expectations and boundaries for your team, ensuring they have the necessary support and resources to perform at their best.

Tools for Managing Remote Call Centers

In addition to implementing effective management strategies, leveraging technology can significantly enhance the efficiency and performance of your remote call center. Here are five tools that can help you manage your virtual contact center:

1. Video Tools: Video conferencing platforms enable seamless communication and collaboration between remote team members. These tools facilitate face-to-face interactions, screen sharing, and recording of important information, ensuring effective coaching and knowledge sharing.
2. Virtual Classrooms: Conducting virtual classroom sessions allows you to efficiently train groups of new agents simultaneously. These sessions provide consistent training messages and interactive learning experiences, especially for hard skills involving data and computer tasks.
3. eLearning Content: Creating eLearning content ensures that your remote agents have access to the support and resources they need for self-paced training and development. Provide comprehensive guides, resources, and interactive modules to empower your agents to excel in their roles and deliver exceptional customer service.
4. Productivity Tracking: Analytical tools and reporting systems help monitor and improve key performance indicators (KPIs) in your remote call center. These tools provide insights into agent performance and training needs, enabling you to make data-driven decisions and maintain high-quality customer interactions.
5. Quality Assurance: Quality assurance monitoring tools enable you to evaluate the performance of your remote call center across various customer interactions. By leveraging powerful analytics, you can identify training gaps, spot trends, and ensure that your customer service meets or exceeds expectations.

The Future of Remote Call Centers

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of remote work and highlighted the advantages of virtual call centers. Companies are reevaluating their work-from-home policies and embracing a hybrid model that combines remote and onsite work. This shift has emphasized the importance of training, retraining, and maintaining work-life balance for remote agents.

As businesses continue to navigate the evolving landscape, the focus on customer-centricity remains paramount. Remote call centers have proven their ability to deliver exceptional customer experiences by leveraging virtual solutions and investing in employee development. By implementing effective management strategies, leveraging technology tools, and prioritizing the well-being of remote agents, companies can thrive in the virtual world and provide world-class customer service.

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Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is based on industry research and best practices. Individual experiences and outcomes may vary.

The post The Evolution of Remote Call Centers: Enhancing Customer Experience in a Virtual World appeared first on Servion Blog.

How do we explain this apparent contradiction, and what does it mean for software development?

As we are getting into the era of LLMs (large language models) that can write code, expectations about AI developing software are growing. At the same time, independently, the software development cycle has changed with agile development, thus transforming the roles of software engineers. The demand for full-stack engineers is growing by the day, and this trend will likely continue. Because full-stack engineers must master a broad set of tools and languages, they are also apt to embrace what AI can offer, perhaps faster than traditional engineers.

We are not at a point yet where AI can write and productize software without human supervision, and there are unsolved practical problems. One of the best practices, in truth not always followed, is peer reviews. With tools like Bard, or Copilot, a developer or just about anyone can quickly generate many lines of code. This does not mean that this code is of good enough quality or even that it does what it is supposed to do; how you review the potentially huge amount of code produced and validate it is an open question.

And interesting concepts like self-healing code are more aspirational than concrete for most development teams.

There are intriguing areas where AI could have a very positive impact, such as the rewrite of paleolithic code written in Cobol, which has fallen out of favor and which few programmers still understand but still supports critical applications. For example, according to Reuters, 95% of credit card swipes run on Cobol code.

An essential fact is that the appetite for software is unsatiable. I am yet to find a product executive who doesn’t want more capabilities to sell, an engineering executive who doesn’t want to clean up their technical debt and modernize their code, and companies that do not have processes to retool and improve with software. Ask anyone, and you will always get a long list of things to do – also called a backlog.

All indications are that current outsourcing trends will continue and grow; EY forecasts that the number of global capability centers in India and the associated number of employees will grow sharply in the next years. This is also true for outsourcing hubs.

For most enterprises, adopting AI in software engineering will be a journey that they will accomplish with their outsourcing partners. This journey will require adapting to new practices, we will see productivity increases, some of which will go into cost efficiency, while most of it will go to delivering more, higher quality software.

The post What does AI mean for software development? appeared first on Servion Blog.

There is no denying an extraordinarily high interest in generative AI, and ChatGPT doesn’t cease to amaze. However, as many have found, there is no magic wand, and getting to professional usefulness requires a significant effort.

There are many use cases where ChatGPT brings value and enables productivity, and ample literature provides details. In the customer experience space, at this point, very few companies have implemented generative AI technologies and even less for customer service. Why is that?

Simply put, it isn’t effortless, and the necessary skills are in short supply. Most enterprises do not have the staff to pull this out, which is why Microsoft launched the AI skills initiative to help people to master the usage of AI.

To commission a ChatGPT or Bard-based customer chatbot, here is what you need to do in broad terms:

–       Identify the use case: what are you going to automate?

–       Make the data available to the application: which are the data sources, how do you access them, do you keep data in their native place or cache, duplicate, and so forth? In other words, like any well-behaved system, you must have a well-thought-out data and storage strategy.

–       Build the user interface, including dialogues and navigation. This is where things can get hairy. ChatGPT or Bard knows very little, if anything, about your product names or topics your customers want to chat or talk about. To inject this knowledge into the model that your dialogue will use, you must train it. It’s tedious and requires extracting phrases and vocabulary from recorded conversations or chats. Analyzers and topic modelers can help but are not free and take some training. Depending on the size of your project, annotating data manually or via tools is a cost, timing, and benefits decision.

–       Build the prompts; this is the core of using generative AI. Your application will communicate with ChatGPT or Bard via prompts – very much like you would do on the websites, except that the prompts will be sent via an API. How you construct these prompts is critical to the success of your chatbot. The better your prompts are, the better the response will be, and you will receive less generic mumbo jumbo and hallucinations. Concepts like prompt chaining and chain of thought are paramount for getting it right.

–       Decide if you need or want the ability to escalate a dialogue to a real person. Nothing is more frustrating than to be stuck in an endless loop, and unfortunately, this happens too often with customer service systems. Transitioning from a chatbot to a person implies behind-the-scenes integrations between the AI application and the contact center software, and it is most often not trivial.

–       Test the application. Assess the quality of the answers using either synthetic or real data. This means, for example, returning to the recordings, replaying the customer questions to the chatbot, and verifying that the answers are correct and helpful.

–       Monitor and optimize. Your enterprise data constantly change, as your products, services, and people do. Unless you constantly update and upgrade the model with the latest data, the risk of inaccuracy or of the chatbot not understanding the question increases, leading to unacceptable service.

This list is not exhaustive, but by now, you probably have a sense of what it takes to deploy generative AI for customer service. The good news is that tools that facilitate the process exist and can greatly simplify and speed up the development and implementation.

There is no doubt that mastering AI can provide competitive differentiation and lead to higher productivity levels. A sound understanding of technology and planning is essential for success, like always in IT.

The post Customer Experience and ChatGPT, nine months in appeared first on Servion Blog.

Cisco Powered Managed Services implies that Servion has met Cisco’s stringent requirements to achieve the certification. Each service is audited by a third party to help assure a proven performance and is backed by an enterprise-class service-level agreement. Servion is now an approved Cisco Powered Managed Services provider for:

• Webex Contact Center
• Cloud Calling
• Managed Business Communications
• Managed Unified Contact Center
• Cisco SD-WAN

Servion is also a global Cloud and Managed Services Partner (CMSP) for Cisco’s hosted, collaboration, and contact center technologies that help customers design, deploy, and launch Webex Contact Center and Cloud Calling, ensure fast user adoption, and accelerate business outcomes. Servion’s platform-driven 24 x 7 end-to-end proactive managed services are a unique value proposition. It allows enterprises to focus on delivering exceptional customer experiences instead of worrying about daily operational challenges.

“Servion is thrilled to have achieved the Cisco Powered Services certification for Webex Contact Center and Cloud Calling,” said Eric Wildermuth, President – Sales, Servion. “This certification is a testament to our deep understanding of Cisco technologies and our ability to deliver innovative solutions that transform customer engagement. We are proud to partner with Cisco in empowering businesses to enhance their communication capabilities and elevate customer experiences.”

About Servion Global Solutions   

For more than 25 years, Servion has been trusted by customer-centric brands for designing, building, running and optimizing Contact Centers and Customer Experience (CX) solutions. Servion delivers complete solutions for businesses to innovate in providing digital experiences using the best available technologies while maximizing their existing investments. Our 1,100 CX professionals apply their passion and deep domain expertise to the entire design-build-run-optimize solution lifecycle. Servion has helped 600 enterprises across the globe deliver great experiences to their customers, partners, and employees. For more information, visit https://servion.com.

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Hammer, the leading global provider of end-to-end contact center testing and CX assurance solutions, has announced a strategic partnership with Servion, a leading contact center and CX solutions provider, to speed up the deployment of superior solutions that address the complexity of modern contact center environments.

The strategic partnership means that Servion’s customers can now choose from a range of Hammer automated testing solutions for on-premises, hybrid, cloud-based, and WebRTC contact center environments, providing visibility into each step of the customer journey and accelerating service innovations while reducing risk.

Hammer and Servion’s product engineering teams will also collaborate to develop AI-powered automated testing solutions to address the ever-increasing complexity of modern contact centers, which depend upon the interoperability of multiple platforms and systems to deliver seamless omnichannel journeys:

Agent Experience – Successful customer journeys depend upon both the customer experience and the agent’s desktop experience, yet testing is often limited to the customer connection. Hammer’s testing capability goes further, with virtual agents for all leading global contact center vendors enabling users to not only validate the connection, but also verify the customer journey routes to the expected agent, with the correct CTI data, within the anticipated timeframe.

WebRTC – Hammer is the only vendor that supports all of the leading CCaaS vendors taking a webRTC-first approach. WebRTC deployments require a close focus on network performance and systems integration to ensure optimal customer experience. Hammer’s testing capability will pinpoint degradation of internet bandwidth that could impact voice and video quality and detect misconfiguration or congestion on enterprise routers, VPN concentrators, and networks that could lead to dropped calls and other issues.

SMS Testing – Enterprises are taking advantage of the widespread adoption of SMS as a preferred method of communication by implementing “visual IVR” functionality within SMS to make it a more sophisticated 2-way communication medium while increasing containment and reducing agent costs. The increased importance of this digital channel requires modern contact centers to ensure SMS messages reach their destination within a timely manner. Hammer supports bi-directional SMS user journey automation for short-code and long-code phone numbers.

Chatbots and Conversational AI – Chatbot adoption has become commonplace across most large Enterprises and often serves as the launch point for many customer journeys due to its upfront website integration. Introducing AI-enabled bots such as ChatGPT will accelerate this adoption and allow for more sophisticated and human-like customer interactions, further enabling organizations to control containment and agent costs. Hammer’s capability to support chatbot, SMS, and voice user journeys both individually (multichannel) and sequentially or concurrently (omnichannel) ensures customers are well-positioned to keep pace with the next-generation contact center technology.

John D’Anna, President, Hammer “The pace of change within the contact center industry is unprecedented, and more importantly, the behaviors and expectations in terms of quality of experience for consumers and agents have evolved so drastically. It is all the more important for us to invest and deliver innovative solutions to fuel growth and success for Hammer. Servion understands the contact center industry well, and its digital engineering practice is well-positioned for mutual success. I am sure this partnership will enrich our customer experience and product quality.”

Eric Wildermuth, President – Sales, Servion, said, “We are delighted to have been selected as the Product Engineering partner to help Hammer, the leading contact center testing and CX assurance solutions provider. Our digital engineering practice at Servion has the experience to seamlessly manage projects from strategy through execution for some of the leading contact center technology providers. As a result, our contact center expertise and global delivery model help deliver cost-effective and innovative products for our clients.”

About Hammer

The largest contact centers worldwide rely on Hammer and its proven technology to guarantee optimal customer experience and business outcomes. Hammer ensures its clients deliver high-quality communications across voice, IVR, and digital channels through automated end-to-end testing and assurance solutions that mimic real-world citizen and customer engagement., As a result, Hammer’s technologies play a pivotal role in ensuring excellence in day-to-day operation of more than 250 large enterprises, including 6 of the top 10 global banks, 8 of the top 10 global healthcare organizations, and 7 of the top 10 largest insurance companies. For more information, visit https://www.hammer.com.

About Servion

For more than 25 years, Servion has been trusted by customer-centric brands for architecting, implementing, and managing Contact Centers and Customer Experience (CX) solutions. Servion delivers complete solutions for businesses to innovate in providing digital experiences using the best available technologies while maximizing their existing investments. Our 1,100 CX professionals apply their passion and deep domain expertise to the entire build-run-optimize solution lifecycle. Servion has helped 600 enterprises worldwide deliver great experiences to their customers, partners, and employees. For more information, visit https://www.servion.com.

The post Hammer and Servion Announce Strategic Partnership to Accelerate Deployment of End-to-end CX Assurance for Omnichannel Contact Centers appeared first on Servion Blog.

The adoption of ChatGPT-4 by contact centers is set to revolutionize the way businesses interact with their customers. With AI-powered chatbots projected to handle up to 70% of customer conversations by the end of 2023, according to a recent Juniper Research report, contact centers are embracing the technology to improve their efficiency and to provide a better customer experience.

However, the implementation of ChatGPT-4 and other AI models in contact centers will not be without its challenges. First-generation chatbots have struggled to understand complex requests or maintain context throughout an interaction. Advanced chatbots like ChatGPT-4 may occasionally produce inaccurate responses, but the capacity of large language models to generate conversational data can help platform providers accelerate the development of in-house AI conversational engines.

By incorporating different conversational styles and content tones and learning and adapting based on customer interactions, LLMs such as ChatGPT-4 can significantly improve the quality of responses and overall customer experience. Text-based interactions provide valuable insights for CX solutions, but there’s much to be gained from voice data too. AI and transcription plug-ins can transcribe speech to text and offer AI-generated notes for key topics in the conversation, making it possible to jump to specific patterns such as intents or phrases.

Some of the use cases that ChatGPT-4 enables in customer service include:

• Intelligent Voice Assistants (IVAs): ChatGPT-4 is a revolutionary technology that is set to change the world of intelligent virtual assistants. ChatGPT-4 enabled virtual assistants will be able to understand and respond to user queries in a more human-like manner. The technology will enable virtual assistants to provide personalized responses based on the user’s preferences, history, and context. It will also enable virtual assistants to learn from user interactions and improve their performance over time.
• Automated call qualification: ChatGPT-4 can analyze the conversation in real-time and understand the context and intent of the caller’s questions or concerns. ChatGPT-4 can be used to automate the call qualification process by analyzing the conversation.
• Agent Assistance and automated call-summaries: One of the most exciting use cases for ChatGPT-4 is in agent assistance. With its natural language processing capabilities, ChatGPT-4 can analyze customer conversations and provide agents with responses that are tailored to the customer’s needs. This not only saves time for the agents, but also ensures that customers receive accurate and personalized responses. ChatGPT-4 can also be used to automate routine tasks, freeing up agents to focus on more complex issues. ChatGPT-4 can also be used to provide a summary of a call, based on a speech to text transcription fed to it. Overall, ChatGPT-4 is a game-changer for agent scripting and support, providing businesses with a powerful tool to enhance their customer service.
• Customized Training for Agents: ChatGPT-4 can be used to monitor agent performance and provide feedback to agents and supervisors. The model can analyze language patterns, sentiment, and customer satisfaction scores to identify areas where agents need improvement. Agents can receive personalized feedback and guidance on how to improve their performance.

Obviously, there is a cost associated with integrating ChatGPT-4 with contact centers and it can vary depending on a number of factors, including the specific needs and requirements of the business, the size of the contact center, and the level of customization required for the integration. Also note that ChatGPT usually is a component of a broader conversational application that provides dialog management, user interface for either text chat or voice – combined.

Hypothetically, let’s say a customer speaks about 100 words per minute, that is about 150 tokens. Say the system responds with 50 words (only a guess), then you are about:

• 200 tokens per minute
• 12,000 tokens per hour
• $0.024 per hour
• 8 hours per day is $0.192
• Translates to $3.84 – at a high level

Take a safety margin, and the ChatGPT cost itself would be $10 per agent per month. Not immaterial but a reasonable investment. That doesn’t include initial or recurring training of the model.

In conclusion, the adoption of ChatGPT and other AI models in contact centers is set to transform the customer experience. Contact centers will be able to improve their efficiency, reduce wait times, and provide a better experience for their customers. As the technology continues to evolve, we can expect to see more companies adopting ChatGPT-4 and other AI technologies to improve their customer experience.

Servion, a leading contact center and customer experience service provider can help you with ChatGPT use case identification and integrating it with your existing Conversational AI or Contact Center platforms. Want to know more about ChatGPT and how it can improve your customer experience? Write to us at marketing@servion.com.

References:

• AI customer experience examples add to CX playbook
• ChatGPT and LLM-based chatbots set to improve customer experience
• Where does ChatGPT fit into the Contact Center – Call Design
• ChatGPT for Customer Service: Capabilities, Use Cases
• 6 Uses of ChatGPT for Customer Service – Blog – InvGate
• Using ChatGPT for Customer Service

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What does customer journey orchestration mean?

Customer journey orchestration is the process of leveraging customer data from every channel, source, or system to understand a customer’s entire experience with an organization as opposed to individual interactions. This creates a more complete understanding of each customer to make every moment of engagement highly personalized based on their prior experience. This deep dive into activity across all touchpoints also helps companies work faster to improve at every step.

Here’s a hypothetical example of customer journey orchestration:

While monitoring the journey across one of its key offerings, an insurance provider noticed that interaction costs were increasing while self-service percentages were decreasing. Empowered by this insight, the company’s CX team was able to investigate and discover that its First Contact Resolution rate had fallen significantly, increasing call volume and costs for this journey.

Further investigation found that the likelihood of a customer calling an agent would be much higher if they were trying to access their online portal using a non-Chrome web browser. The CX team notified IT to resolve the issue and worked with marketing to proactively communicate with impacted customers, producing a win-win scenario.

Why is customer journey orchestration important?

Customers no longer simply pick up the phone, ask a question, and hang up. They engage with organizations in every feasible way, so much so that Gartner recently coined the term “The Everything Customer”: a modern consumer who wants to access and engage brands through their tech in one seamless swoop. No friction, no fragmentation, and no hassle.

Companies are paying close attention. United Airlines allows passengers 10 ways to digitally interact, including smart speakers, and Domino’s lets its customers order pizza from their smart TV. Even if you don’t offer service via “fancy” mediums like smartwatches and smart TVs, your customers use more than just phone for engagement – including touchpoints outside your company’s purview – that must be managed and mapped out to better understand and improve their overall brand experience.

The bottom line is that customers don’t just have service interactions; they’re journeying, and this journey never ends.

How do organizations tangibly benefit?

McKinsey reports that measuring satisfaction on customer journeys is 30% more predictive of overall customer satisfaction (CSAT) than measuring happiness for each individual interaction. Maximizing satisfaction with customer journeys also has the potential not only to increase CSAT by as much as 20% but increase revenue by up to 15% while lowering the cost of serving customers by as much as 20%.

Here are three specific ways organizations tangibly benefit from customer journey orchestration:

• Anticipate your customers’ needs and proactively engage based on a complete picture of their buying journey (70% of customers globally say they have a more favorable view of brands that engage via proactive notifications). Application-to-person messaging platforms facilitate this proactiveness.
• Match customers with the best resource within your organization (not just the next available agent) using business rules, context, and desired outcomes (intelligent skill-based routing is proven to improve FCR and CSAT by 5% to 15%).
• Deliver an effortless experience throughout the entire customer journey, across both voice and digital channels and devices (a.k.a. cater to The Everything Customer).

Where do you get started?

Many companies orchestrate interactions only within the contact center while leading organizations nurture a truly data-driven, technology-enabled ecosystem to capture customer interactions across the entire journey seamlessly. It’s highly likely, however, that these “contact center-specific” organizations have all the applications and systems needed to start orchestrating journeys and getting more intelligence from their data.

It’s at this point that a certified technology partner like Servion is perfectly positioned to help bring everything together so you can begin managing your data more effectively, understanding your customers more deeply, and making improvements more immediately. We enable customer journey orchestration for global leaders in healthcare, financial services, and telecom in myriad ways, from application development to offering the industry’s largest ecosystem of specialized technology partners.

When you know better, you do better. Servion can help your organization take this critical step in its CX strategy.

The post From Interactions to Journeys: How to Start Managing CX Holistically appeared first on Servion Blog.

Since the 1990s at least, contact centers have been organized around reports that are the basis for many business processes. Large contact centers can generate billions of data per day. Each call or interaction is decomposed into events; these events are then aggregated along several dimensions, such as time intervals, agent skills, customer types, queues for calls or messages, outcomes, and so forth.

A ubiquitous sight in call centers is a set of displays showing the current wait time for customers, the service level (for example, the percentage of calls answered within 20 seconds), or the number of calls in each queue. These provide essential information that gives everyone in the center a view of what is going on and helps supervisors make decisions, such as assigning more agents to a queue that is lengthening or asking more agents to log in. The refresh rate of the so-called real-time reports is typically a few short seconds.

Beyond the immediate here-and-now supervision, contact centers generate reports on intervals ranging from 15 minutes to one hour to one day to one week, etc. These reports inform sales or customer service leads on the activity and answer questions like: is the interaction volume going up or down, are the reasons why people call or chat changing, are service levels met, and are disposition codes showing new patterns?

Data are also exported to applications such as workforce management that help schedule agents and track staffing, HR systems for compensation purposes, CRM for updating customer records, and enterprise analytics for deeper analysis of customer journeys.

Contact center reporting is a broad and sometimes complicated set of features – that is why a typical reporting user guide for an enterprise-class contact center platform is in the hundreds of pages, presenting details on every data element and reports structure. It is no surprise that customers find differences between the previous and new solutions when migrating from one system to another. These differences are sometimes obvious and sometimes subtle, making it necessary to review the operation and its needs thoroughly.

Want to know more about contact center reporting? Talk to our CX experts.

The post Why isn’t anyone talking about contact center reporting? appeared first on Servion Blog.

The established vendors you interact with tease their chatbot capabilities, startups keep calling, and you read about ChatGPT (released by OpenAI that has just received a $ 10 billion investment from Microsoft) and Google’s response to it, Bard. You look at analysts’ reports and read about alarming failure rates, despite claims that AI is ushering self-service into a new era of customer convenience and response efficiency.

You’re not alone. It’s not a consolation; it is a depiction of the state of the industry.

Let’s unpack this. Undoubtedly, digital solutions have improved over the last year, sometimes dramatically. Speech recognition and natural language processing and understanding (NLP/NLU) are much more capable and open new perspectives for chatbots and customer service. One crucial consideration to remember is that general-purpose tools do not meet the needs of a particular enterprise right off the bat. Tools such as ChatGPT, part of the large language model (LLM) class, need to be thought of in the context of intents (I want to return a product), entities (it’s a Samsung Q70A) and workflows (find the order number, confirm the return, close the transaction), and developing these requires serious work.

For example, ChatGPT doesn’t necessarily know your product catalog well. More critically, it may supply incorrect responses to a customer query; it needs to learn the specifics of the environment in which it will run. To illustrate that point, I asked ChatGPT to list the characteristics of a bike I am interested in. The answer came back with five bullet points, the qualitative ones (good endurance bike for long comfortable rides) were correct, and the hard facts, such as the frame’s material, were incorrect. If ChatGPT were used natively as a chatbot by that bike company, it wouldn’t work well.

The good news is that vendors provide solutions to make that work more accessible and more automated. The not-so-good news is that each vendor toolkit is somehow proprietary, meaning there is no portability of your intents and workflow libraries between vendors.

In a fast-changing landscape, proprietary solutions are fraught with danger. It would behoove you to assess the viability of any chatbot proposal carefully. From an industry observer’s standpoint, too many solutions look similar and claim to be the best at one side of the technology or the other. It is a safe bet that many won’t survive, and the industry will coalesce around a few players who excel at developing or using mainstream LLMs.

To make your chatbot choice as future-proof as it can be, consider the following:

• Has the core speech and NLP/NLU technology staying power? Could it be swapped if the company could not sustain the ever-growing investment needed to stay competitive?
• How are tools such as ChatGPT part of the solution? Several industry leaders have embraced it, making it, if not a standard, a leading solution already.
• How powerful are the intent discovery, categorization, workflow creation, and management tools?

At Servion, we specialize in helping our customers deploy customer experience solutions, and we deeply understand the technologies mentioned in this post and how they can help transform their customer service. Contact our CX experts for a discussion about your bot strategy.

The post How to choose a chatbot? A few tips for a sound investment appeared first on Servion Blog.

A few examples of proactive outreach include sending follow-up emails to customers after a purchase, offering personalized recommendations based on their previous interactions with your business, and proactively reaching out to customers who have not interacted with your business in a while to check in and see if they need any help, or notifying customers of a problem before they found it and suggest a resolution.

Implementing such programs can lead to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty, as well as improved sales and revenue. Additionally, proactive outreach can help you stay top-of-mind with potential customers, making it more likely that they will think of you when they are ready to purchase.

Some examples of how proactive outreach might be used in different industries include:

• Banking: A bank might use proactive outreach to contact potential customers and offer them special deals on products such as credit cards or loans and financial advice. Messaging about transactions is also a way to keep customers informed and connected.
• Telecoms: A telecom company might use proactive outreach to contact potential customers and offer them special deals on mobile phone plans or broadband packages. As important, they could also use proactive outreach to prevent churn.
• Retail: A clothing retailer might use proactive outreach to push personalized product recommendations to customers based on their previous purchases and browsing history – the ‘product you may like’ feature. Research indicates that two-thirds of shoppers abandon a purchase after adding it to their cart. Proactive engagement helps keep these shoppers engaged and transacting.
• Healthcare: A provider might contact patients to schedule regular check-ups or health screenings, send reminders about upcoming appointments or medication refills, or offer personalized health and wellness recommendations based on the patient’s medical history. By adopting a patient-first, highly engaged, and proactive mindset, healthcare providers deliver better patient outcomes.
• Hospitality: A restaurant might use proactive outreach to reach out to regular customers and offer them special deals or promotions to encourage them to return and dine with them again.

Overall, proactive outreach can be an effective way for businesses to create new opportunities, build relationships with potential customers, increase sales/revenue and improve the overall customer experience. Proactive outreach can be based on social media listening and response, direct messaging, voice calls, and email, and of course, is still very often delivered by your mailperson.

Yet, most customers report that they have yet to experience proactive customer service, according to a Gartner study of 6,000 customers. Gartner also found that two-thirds of customers contact customer service after receiving proactive outreach from a brand. Servion can help you identify and deploy proactive customer service solutions that benefit your organization. Contact our CX experts to get started with your proactive customer service strategies and improve your customer experience.

The post Proactive Outreach in Customer Service, Impact and Use Cases appeared first on Servion Blog.

There’s a huge danger for companies that are not at least attempting to think about these solutions. Here’s what you need to know about these crucial CX investments:

Nearly 60% of businesses use AI in some form, particularly for customer service (contact center automation, customer service analytics, predictive service), and plan to increase investment over the next three years.

In the CX space, AI is the ability of software to make decisions and provide user-intuitive interfaces. The technology is proven to help agents handle twice as many calls per shift, improving speed to answer and customer abandonment rates. What this means for your company: lower operational costs, higher agent efficiency, and greater customer satisfaction.

How you can use AI, from beginner level to advanced:

• Provide immediate, on-demand assistance and self-service via a chat or voice bot (“In a few words, tell us why you’re calling. We’ll be able to understand what you’re saying”)
• Automate the tracking of customers’ issues and queries without the need for human intervention (this is helpful, especially for companies with large customer service teams, to save on costs and increase efficiency)
• Route calls faster and even personalize routing based on available data
• Have AI analyze interactions on any channel (voice or digital) to detect issues where intervention may be needed
• Deliver proactive service to minimize friction and better control service outcomes

Here’s what Servion’s clients have achieved with AI, supported by our expert team:

• 20% decrease in response and resolution time
• 25% reduction in wrong routing, getting customers to the right person the first time for higher First Call Resolution (FCR)
• 18% reduction in Average Handle Time (AHT)

AI runs on data, which every company has. The tricky part is incorporating tools that use AI and machine learning to achieve your CX goals. When AI doesn’t meet customers’ expectations, it stirs up fears. We wonder if businesses should use AI with us, or if we should do business with brands that use AI at all. AI has massive CX potential, but partnership is crucial for success.

Your customers want to engage with you in their preferred channel, seamlessly and effortlessly.

It’s true that most people prefer phone calls for getting in touch with an agent, but what about all the times when a human isn’t needed? Are you okay waiting on hold to handle something simple like a password reset or balance lookup? Some services like curbside pickup are only available via digital channels like text messaging or in-app messaging.

There are so many ways customers want to engage today – chat, text, social media, self-service – and the list is constantly growing. You need to give your customers these options and ensure they can seamlessly move across them without friction. 

Besides the clear customer demand, an omnichannel approach is massively beneficial for companies because it:

• Lowers costs by transitioning customers to self-service. For example, an incoming caller can opt for a digital or mobile self-service experience instead of choosing to wait on hold. When done right, this is a win-win: the customer gets answers faster and the company can deflect the call, thus saving time and money. One Servion customer reported a 500% increase in self-service utilization after we helped them implement an effective omnichannel approach.
• Provides greater customer insight. More interaction touchpoints create more data insights your organization can act on for upselling, proactive service, and overall better CX. For example, did you know that 93% of customers trust text messaging as a communication channel and text message open rates can be as high as 98%? Without an omnichannel approach, you’re missing out on a world of new CX opportunities.

This is the way of the future, and it’s best made possible with a cloud-based contact center (Contact Center-as-a-Service, or CCaaS). If you’re limited by your current solution and want to introduce new cloud-based platforms that add value to your current architecture, check out Servion. We have established partnerships with the world’s best CCaaS technology providers including Genesys, NICE, Cisco, Five9, and AWS with a proven track record of success.  

Join the hundreds of companies across the globe who have successfully deployed their contact centers with Servion.

The post Why AI and Omnichannel Are Today’s Top CX Investments appeared first on Servion Blog.

Now’s the time to be investing in technology solutions that can make an immediate impact in your contact center and improve ROI as adoption increases over time. Here’s what you should be looking at:

SPEECH ANALYTICS

Most customers still prefer calling to reach a service rep. Put AI to work by having it analyze customer-agent conversations (recorded after the fact or in real-time) to identify actionable insights. You can better understand the agent experience (where training might be lacking, for example), regulatory compliance (which agents are following or failing to comply), customer complaints (the underlying reasons why customers are unhappy), and more based on what they say and how.

Companies that successfully use speech analytics report cost savings of between 20-30%, CSAT improvements of 10% or more, and stronger sales as well. Overall, the global speech analytics market is slated for 22% year-over-year growth between 2020 and 2026.

CONVERSATIONAL SELF-SERVICE

Take your chat bot or IVR to the next level by allowing it to understand natural speech and engage with customers in two-way conversation. Conversational AI uses machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), and natural language understanding (NLU) to understand not just the words your customers say but the intent and emotion behind them. Conversational AI also instantly addresses questions which, if done well, will transform customer relationships.

As the self-learning system gets smarter with each use, you may even feel confident in transitioning away from manual configuration with “if/then” decision trees. Another huge benefit of conversational self-service is the ability to scale your contact center without having to hire more agents. Remember, though, to always make it easy for your customers to reach a live person. No one wants to get stuck in an infinite dialog loop with a machine.  

CONTACT ROUTING

About 20% of customers who call a contact center are transferred to another agent, sometimes more than once. Research shows that every time they are, their satisfaction drops 12% and your company’s First Contact Resolution (FCR) rate drops 14%. You can apply AI to your routing system so that all incoming queries – via phone, email, messaging, chat, or any other channel – are automatically directed to the right agent or resource based on actionable data insights.

This can be information you have stored based on a customer’s interaction or transaction history or information a customer submits in real-time to help you better understand why they’re reaching out. Again, make sure you don’t trap customers in a conversational loop. Always provide a way out if preferred.

PROCESS AUTOMATION

The life of a contact center agent is as demanding as it gets. You need to be “on” as soon as you start your shift, you hardly ever get a break (there is always a phone call or email to be answered), and you’re constantly fielding negative and/or challenging situations.

If there’s nothing new to learn, you’re essentially doing the same, emotionally taxing work for hours on end. This is a waste of perfectly good time your agents could be using to handle more important matters (up to three hours per shift, research shows), and this monotony is also proven to increase boredom, burnout, and stress. It’s no wonder attrition is so high in contact centers. This entails huge hiring and training costs, not to mention lost efficiency when agents are still in the “get up to speed” period.

Almost 80% of agents polled by Salesforce in 2020 agreed that automating routine tasks would help them complete more complex tasks like tech support and recharge their batteries, so to speak, to handle negative or challenging events. You can also run AI to automatically pull up information for agents like past ticket answers or knowledge base articles they can use to address a question or to send to a customer.

Almost 80% of CX leaders say they plan to increase their investment in contact center AI and automation, specifically to improve customers satisfaction, agent efficiency, and costs. Servion can help you start using contact center AI to immediately improve CX, EX, and operational efficiency. We have helped businesses of every kind reach their goals with these solutions, and budget is always a top consideration.

Check out our success stories and schedule a call with our experts!

The post Cutting Corporate Spending? Don’t Touch Your Contact Center appeared first on Servion Blog.

Even in uncertain times, investing in customer experience is a safe bet. Why? Because happy customers are loyal customers. And loyal customers are the lifeblood of any business. According to Bain, companies that excel at customer experience grow revenues by 4% to 8% above their market. Perhaps more importantly, turning customers into promoters generates a lifetime value six to fourteen times higher than detractors.

So, if you want your business to weather any storm, invest in creating positive customer experiences at every touchpoint—from initial contact through purchase and beyond. It’s the surest way to keep your existing customers returning and attracting new ones, in good and bad times.

How can you build customer trust? Here are a few tips:

1. Be consistent in your delivery of quality products or services. Your customers must know they can always count on you to deliver the goods (or services). Don’t cut corners – ensure every customer experience is positive.

2. Communicate openly and honestly with your customers at all times. Customers appreciate transparency, and if there are any changes or disruptions to your service levels, let them know as soon as possible. This way, there will be no surprises, and people will feel like their being kept in the loop. That is how to establish an emotional connection.

3. Go above and beyond whenever possible. If someone takes the time to give feedback – good or bad – thank them for their input. And if there’s ever an opportunity to go above and beyond what’s expected, seize it! Customers love feeling valued, and this exceptional service will not soon be forgotten.

4. Make it easy for people to do business with you. In our fast-paced world, convenience is vital. People want things quickly, easily, and without hassle. You’ll score some points if you can simplify their lives by streamlining processes or offering additional amenities or perks.

5. Be responsive. No one likes feeling ignored. Whether it’s via social media channels, phone calls, emails, live chat, chatbots, or whatever methods of communication you offer, make sure you can respond promptly. Nothing says “we don’t care about our customers” quite like unreturned messages, long waits, chatbots that do not solve the issue, and so forth.

A superior customer experience can help you increase sales, reduce churn and boost customer loyalty –vital in uncertain times like these. Moreover, research such as the Watermark study shows that CX provides a significant return on investment (ROI), making it a compelling case as you set your priorities.

Contact us to discuss the best technology and services options with our experts to improve your CX and deliver tangible and timely financial benefits.

The post Why investing in CX is all the more critical in an uncertain economy appeared first on Servion Blog.

They need to continually differentiate their services, make critical operational improvements, and orchestrate valuable new experiences for customers and employees. This requires embracing modern and highly available infrastructure (which is often cloud-based), implementing an effective data management approach, and the integration of many applications and business processes, both in the cloud and on-premises. It will also likely involve custom development, which may introduce additional security and compliance risks and require a degree of in-house talent that is often scarce.

To succeed, enterprises need to consider the following five areas:

1. Targeted technology investments

Developing new digital business and digitizing your core business require new investments in technology. How do you ensure you stay within budget? What should you prioritize as high-value investments? How do you track and maximize the value produced by those investments? A sound digital engineering approach will answer these questions first and ensure that the project’s business KPIs remain a guidepost. A question on many peoples’ mind is “What should we do about the cloud?” Some go all the way to lift and shift their entire IT to the cloud. Others adopt a hybrid model based on systematic cost-benefit analysis for individual applications or domains, and so they elect to keep a private data center architecture.

2. Agile development practices

Agility and flexibility are paramount to competitiveness. Agile techniques like scrum teams, iterative development, continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD), user involvement early in the development cycle, and productivity management contribute to faster time to revenue. Some applications may still follow a waterfall cycle as long as their architecture doesn’t lend itself to rapid iterations, but agile development is generally becoming the norm. No-code platforms can now support complex processes and should be considered for prototyping new applications and services and later for production.

3. Understanding and mastery of available technology

No one vendor offers enterprises everything for their digital transformation in the CX area. Enterprises have to select and make several different technologies work together, from customer authentication to interaction management to back-end analytics to process automation. Leading vendors are AWS, Cisco, Genesys, NICE CXOne, Google CCAI, Nuance, Verint, Avaya, Liveperson, Oracle, Twilio, UIPath, and others in the CX space. Understanding these offers and deploying experienced personnel is critical to success.

4. Modular architecture

Composability and micro-services are two essential attributes of innovative applications. Composability means using APIs that access and leverage capabilities from other systems and micro-services. The architecture is modular, with fine-grained and loosely coupled components that communicate via simple protocols.

5. Security and risk management

Financial institutions face an avalanche of compliance and security mandates, and migrating to the cloud requires providers to be certified against security and privacy (data residency, CCPA, GDPR, etc.) standards. As importantly, the implementation must be conducted according to security practices.

Most enterprises seek external help from digital engineering services providers when embarking on their digital transformation journey. When considering a digital engineering services provider, one should consider these five dimensions and select companies with a proven track record and set of skilled engineers, architects, and project managers to deliver innovative solutions and desired business outcomes.

Servion’s Digital Engineering practice has been helping financial institutions for many years and has delivered many successful projects, including:

Automating 75 banking processes for a leading banking group in Asia.

The bank was looking for an RPA partner to automate various business units such as collections, card operations, and fulfillment. The objective was to reduce manual errors and improve productivity and efficiency in opening and maintaining cards and accounts. Backed by certified engineers with RPA tools and implementation expertise, Servion conducted a thorough discovery with the client and mapped out a detailed design for a custom-built RPA solution. The solution increased throughput by 400%, reduced staffing requirements by 69%, increased uptime by 50%, and reduced processing time by 34% – all while producing annual cost savings of nearly $600k.

Accelerating dispute management for a leading credit card issuer in the U.S.

Servion designed an RPA solution to help this client automate the closure of dispute cases. The creation of a new claim in the dispute management system (Quavo) creates a shadow case in the bank’s incident tracking system that needs to be validated and closed on time. The company manages a monthly average of 35,000 cases, requiring significant funds and effort. The automated solution can complete the tracking case closure process in four hours with multiple robots in action so agents have sufficient time to review reports – all with 100% accuracy.

Learn more about Servion’s Digital Engineering services.

The post Leveraging Digital Engineering for Digital Transformation in Financial Services appeared first on Servion Blog.

Here are five steps for creating a high-performance customer service culture that drives success:

1. Define and promote your customer service culture

Clearly define and consistently communicate your customer service culture so agents will always have a guiding philosophy for taking the next best action. When defining your culture, think of the mindset you want agents to have when working. This mindset is ultimately shaped by your company values. How are your agents upholding these values in their interactions with customers? Define and redefine your culture as your organization evolves. 

At the same time, you should understand who your customers are and what they want when interacting with your contact center. Contact center analytics will help you see and understand the big picture of what’s going on in your contact center in an integrated way. You’ll gain data-driven insights into your customers’ preferences and their overall journey with your brand. By identifying and sharing these insights, your agents will be better equipped to provide the level of service customers expect. 

2. Fill your roster with the right people

A high-performance customer service culture prioritizes service-minded people who will embrace the culture and contribute to it. When interviewing, ask job candidates engaging questions that will give them a good idea of your culture while determining if they’ll be a good cultural fit (ex: “Can you give me a concrete example of when you went out of your way to solve a customer problem?” or “What would your last supervisor say about you?”). You can also propose hypothetical customer service scenarios to see how candidates think on their feet in line with your company values. 

Experience and skills are excellent indicators of how a person will perform in their role, but you can’t teach attitude or perspective. Companies have a significant advantage in today’s work-from-anywhere world, where talent pools have massively expanded. If you don’t have a hybrid or remote work policy, it could be worth considering filling your roster with the right people. 

3. Keep your agents positively engaged

Over half of employees say they’re more burned out than ever, especially contact center workers. Without consistent and genuine engagement, it’s only a matter of time until agents mentally check out or walk out. One way to strengthen engagement is through workforce engagement management. This solution uses applications that factor in comfort and engagement, along with work demands, to increase agent autonomy, lower stress, and create a greater sense of community. Workforce engagement management also helps agents align work and personal schedules, leading to better work-life balance and higher retention.  

4. Invest in tools that empower agents  

We hear the word “empower” a lot. Just how empowered are your agents to meet your customers’ needs? Which decisions can they make? Are they authorized to grant a return or a refund, extend a discount or a credit, or propose a replacement or a free upgrade? Do you make your agents feel like they are owners of the business or that they are just there to expedite one call after another? The ways in which you decide to empower your agents must be supported by the right tools that simplify – rather than hinder – their ability to work. 

The following tools and solutions help modernize contact centers and make agents more productive:

• Screen pops that automatically display customer information at the same time an agent answers a call from a customer. Agents don’t have to manually search for the information, making them more present and engaged while reducing average handle time. 
• Continuous search helps agents access the right documents faster and avoid lengthy pauses.
•      AI-powered speech analyticsallows you to pass critical information like customer sentiment, trends, and demand along to your agents.
• A Workstream Collaboration (WSC) application allows agents to collaborate no matter where they are located and interact with their supervisors, peers, and experts in the organization.
• Real-time AI transcription transcribes customer conversations in real-time for complete, accurate data entry.

You can’t have a high-performance customer service culture without technology that allows your agents to serve customers confidently and comfortably. 

5. Listen to what your agents (and customers) have to say

Ensuring your customer service team feels empowered, respected, and valued is essential for maintaining the culture you’ve worked hard to build. Let agents share their thoughts, frustrations, and concerns and apply their feedback to make tangible improvements to prove you care about their experiences. Always listen to what your customers have to say, as well. Their feedback is crucial for helping you understand what’s going on among your agents. Experience Management is an excellent investment for this – see why in this blog.

Customer service culture is critical for keeping both customers and agents satisfied. Connect with our team to see how Servion can help you build a high-performance customer service organization.

The post 5 steps for building a high-performance customer service culture appeared first on Servion Blog.

Princeton, New Jersey: Servion, a leading contact center and CX solutions provider, announced a new reforestation initiative dedicated to continuing in the spirit of National Forest Week in the United States.

To contribute to planting more trees and making an immediate and tangible impact that supports forest recovery and restores native ecosystems, Servion is launching the ‘One Agent, One Tree’ campaign.

Starting today, Servion will plant one tree for every contact center agent license and ten trees for each bot license that is sold, deployed, or managed. The one-to-ten ratio results from an approximation. It’s not that a bot (chatbot, voice bot, robot) is equivalent to ten humans; AI, automation, and natural language processing can generate significant productivity gains but require substantial computing resources.

“At Servion, we are fully committed to doing our part to better the environment, and this reforestation initiative is part of our long-term endeavor to raise awareness and contribute towards the betterment of the community,” said Laurent Philonenko, Chief Executive Officer of Servion Global Solutions. “If the whole contact center industry were adopting this initiative, assuming a seven-year renewal cycle, we would plant about two million trees per year. I am inviting our partners and customers to join us and make this initiative even more impactful.”

About Servion

For more than 25 years, Servion has been trusted by customer-centric brands for architecting, implementing, and managing Contact Centers and Customer Experience (CX) solutions. Servion delivers complete solutions for businesses to innovate in providing digital experiences using the best available technologies while maximizing their existing investments. Our 1,000 CX professionals apply their passion and deep domain expertise to the entire build-run-optimize solution lifecycle. Servion has helped 600 enterprises worldwide deliver great experiences to their customers, partners, and employees. For more information, visit https://www.servion.com.

The post Servion Announces New Reforestation Initiative With the “One Agent, One Tree” Campaign appeared first on Servion Blog.

Remote work

COVID-19 has proven that agents can work effectively from anywhere (87% of agents were successfully working remotely in 2021 compared to 19% in 2019) and the potential for cost savings is huge. Nemertes estimates that a 100-agent contact center can save over $400,000 per year in capital expenses by allowing just half of its staff to work from home. Overall, 86% of customer service organizations say they’re planning to implement a permanent work-from-home or hybrid model.

From a technology standpoint, moving some or all contact center functionality to the cloud makes remote work easier. Without complicated on-premises connectivity, you can enable agents to work from anywhere with an Internet connection and take calls using their mobile phone, desk phone, or soft phone. You’ll also need to factor in remote onboarding, training, and retention. Servion’s CEO Laurent Philonenko provides some helpful strategies in this blog.

Omnichannel agents

Customers want multiple contact options – traditional voice, IVR, online chat, email, social media, text message – and the ability to seamlessly cross over them during their service journey (i.e., starting an interaction via social media, channel jumping to chat, then escalating to phone). Agents need the right technology to handle these customer expectations.

Agents dealing with multiple channels require a 360-degree view of a customer, from basic contact information to past and present purchasing data to recent interactions with your company and what channels they occurred on, all in one place. This gives agents highly relevant, personal, and timely information that they can act on in the moment, even as customers jump channels. Customers won’t have to constantly repeat themselves, and agents can work smarter and faster.

In this context, agents also require elevated training and coaching. Consider, for example, deploying an AI assistant that actively follows interactions across channels and provides real-time agent coaching and recommendations including sentiment scoring, pop-up alerts, and reminders.

Digital transformation

The goal of digital transformation is to use digital technologies like AI, automation, and data analytics to improve operations and experiences by making smarter, more data-driven decisions for your business. Simple technology integrations and over-the-top partner services make it easy to start collecting data and improving customer and agent experiences. For example:

• Real-time AI transcription: only half of agents say they feel confident in the accuracy of the customer information they manually enter into company systems. AI can transcribe customer conversations in real-time to fill gaps in notes and ensure more complete and accurate data entry. These transcribed conversations are also helpful for ensuring compliance.
• Call deflection: chances are most customers who call your contact center do so from a mobile device. Imagine offering these mobile callers the option to leave your call queue and “talk” with an AI-based chatbot instead. Questions can be addressed faster while the bot simultaneously collects useful customer insights, and live agents will become more available to handle complex matters.
• AI-powered speech analytics: better understand why customers are calling and how they feel during conversations. Spot key trends and get ahead of customer demand.

Finding the right balance between agents and bots

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) seamlessly links front and back-office processes through scalable virtual robots that perform definable, repeatable, rule-based tasks with high efficiency. The technology is innovative, but it can disrupt your business without the right “human/bot” balance.

There are times when customers prefer to speak with a human, and it gets frustrating if they are not able to get past the bot. Don’t trap your customers in hellish phone and chat menu loops. Instead, have bots and agents work together on semi-automated processes (ex: the customer speaks with a live agent while the bot works in the background to automate required actions for issue resolution). When customers want to self-service, bots can be used to fully handle automated processes without human intervention. Make sure your human-to-bot ratio is right, and that both work harmoniously together.

A whip-smart contact center preserves market share that competitors are all too happy to grab. See how Servion can help you reshape and modernize your contact center.

The post Four Core Areas for Contact Center Transformation appeared first on Servion Blog.

World HRD Congress is a well-known independent and not-for-profit organization that focuses on the elements such as HR Tech, Diversity and Inclusion & women leaders in HR and recognizes the professionals and companies who show excellence in different HR practices. 

Prakash Arunachalam, Chief Operating Officer, and Global HR Head, Servion, said, “This is exciting news to start our financial year. We are truly honored to be recognized by the World HRD Congress and would like to congratulate the entire team. Supported by Servion’s leadership and our culture of engagement and inclusion, the HR team at Servion excels at motivating and engaging our 1,000+ employees who are spread across India (Chennai, Bengaluru & Mumbai), APAC (Singapore, Malaysia & Thailand), Middle East (Dubai), The United States, and the United Kingdom. Regular employee engagement activities are focused on the employees’ well-being (mental and physical), training and skillset enhancement, and fun activities. Some of these activities included:

• Talent Hunt – fun activities that involved Servion employees and their families
• Rewards and recognition programs – to recognize top performers 
• Wellness sessions – to improve awareness 
• Vaccination drives during the pandemic 
• Leadership & technical training Sessions 

Servion is one of the few organizations recognized among the 500+ global businesses participating in the awards.”

Congratulating the team, Laurent Philonenko, CEO of Servion, said, “Servion as a company has always emphasized on the welfare of our employees, and this recognition from the World HRD Congress is a testament to our commitment to our employees and our relentless drive for excellence. At Servion, we absolutely believe in the “Happy employees, happy customers” paradigm.”

 About Servion

For more than 25 years, Servion has been trusted by customer-centric brands for architecting, implementing, and managing Contact Centers and Customer Experience (CX) solutions. Servion delivers complete solutions for businesses to innovate in providing digital experiences using the best available technologies while maximizing their existing investments. Our 1,000 CX professionals apply their passion and deep domain expertise to the entire build-run-optimize solution lifecycle. Servion has helped 600 enterprises worldwide deliver great experiences to their customers, partners, and employees. For more information, visit https://www.servion.com.

The post Servion wins HR Company of the Year Award appeared first on Servion Blog.

The super agent is an empowered, knowledgeable, high-performing representative who directly impacts customer experience, loyalty, brand perception, and profits. Embracing the super-agent requires a shift in company culture, a greater focus on agent engagement and individualization, and a thorough assessment of your technology systems. Here are some tips for turning your agents into super agents:

1. Invest in technologies that inform and empower: Agents should never feel limited with what they can do to help customers. The right resources should always be available, with technology making things smooth and easy versus fragmented and chaotic. Here are some questions to ask: 

• How do your agents communicate? As opposed to a communications system siloed within the contact center, consider a converged Workstream Collaboration tool that allows all users, both inside and outside of the contact center, to organically communicate using chat, video, calling, and more. Super agents can view the availability of back-office experts and ping them to gather context about customer inquiries. In turn, those experts can share data in a virtual workspace to fill information gaps and accelerate problem-solving. All of this can be done in real-time while the customer is on the line. There’s no need to hold or transfer calls (improving FCR and increasing response rate), and super agents are empowered to act.
• Do you know what tools will help you extract important information and pass it along to your agents? Consider AI-powered speech analytics, which can identify call drivers and sentiment, spot trends, and get ahead of customer demand. Also consider voice surveys that allow customers to say in their own words how they feel about their experiences with your company. This provides more contextual responses that can help you and your super agents take intentional, immediate action.
• How much effort is required for simple tasks? Is there room to make things easier for your agents? For example, can you help limit the number of screens they need to operate in? Can you add screen pops on inbound calls that provide relevant information based on what the customer is saying in real-time or to help them automatically log calls without leaving their desktop? Simple technology integrations exist to make these improvements.

2. Creatively approach training and feedback: Super agents have basic contact center support down pat. Here are some ways to take things up a notch:

• Provide live feedback to give super agents a clear understanding of how they can improve productivity and efficiency. Beyond silent monitoring and whisper coaching (listening to calls and providing guidance to the agent without the customer hearing it), speech analytics helps with real-time feedback and guidance at scale. Supervisors can only listen to one call at a time; speech analytics can support all super agents simultaneously, which makes a huge difference.
• Organize frequent team huddles. It’s a productive time investment that has been proven to effectively promote certain frontline behaviors, reinforce key messages, and increase agent engagement. Research shows that only 14% of contact centers regularly have huddles (the majority have huddles once per week or even just once per month). Even better, have super agents lead team huddles on specific topics like multitasking, handling emotional customers, etc.
• Try to give agents autonomy over their own training, especially when training them on using tools in line with KPIs. If agents are held to a standard they believe they cannot affect, they’ll likely check out of the job.  

 3. Treat your agents like vested partners: Contact center agents interact with customers daily and have good ideas on what works and what should be left by the wayside. Super agents should be given the opportunity to use this knowledge, with supervisors being open to their suggestions and concerns. Empower them and include them while strategizing your organization’s CX strategies. If you believe super agents have the power to directly impact customer experience, you’ll give them the platform they deserve to be helpful and involved.

Start turning your agents into super agents with Servion.

The post The Ultimate Guide to Creating the Contact Center Super Agent appeared first on Servion Blog.

First Call Resolution (FCR) has been a core metric for decades and directly affects customer satisfaction, agent efficiency, and operational costs, yet still many companies do not score well. Here’s how to give callers the information they want fast and on the first try.

1. Leverage an omnichannel strategy

Omnichannel service allows your customers to use self-service like text and chat, contact your business via multiple channels like email, phone, and social media, and transfer the conversation easily to another channel without having to start from the beginning each time they talk to a new agent. This seamlessness creates a smooth and effortless flow that provides the answers customers want faster. Digital channels also tend to have faster response rates (ex: 40 seconds for live chat on average) and higher satisfaction rates (82% for chat and 61% for email, compared to 44% for phone).

2. Deflect mobile calls to digital and self-service channels

About 30% of customers say their most frustrating issue is information that is simple but hard to find. For a bank, this could be information about a certain policy. For a healthcare provider, this could be what to expect at an upcoming appointment. Companies can quickly address these inquiries for mobile callers by redirecting them to the information they need via digital and self-service channels. Mobile callers will be identified by your IVR and offered the option to be redirected to this alternative service experience (ex: a link sent via text message to an FAQ or a “how to” video). The response rate is rapid (as fast as a text message can be sent), customers can get their issues resolved faster on their own terms, and companies can lower interaction costs.

3. Triage calls using an intelligent IVR

A great way to minimize transfers is to deploy an intelligent IVR that uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to communicate with callers in a natural, human-like way and route them accordingly. For example, a bank could intelligently route a customer to a small business specialist based on them saying they’re calling about small business services. This accelerates your response rate while getting callers to the best-suited resource immediately. An intelligent IVR can also use sentiment analysis to determine whether a caller’s speech is positive or negative – indicating positive or negative emotions – and route them accordingly (ex: routing an angry customer to a retention specialist or VIP service team). 

4. Implement a knowledge base

About 70% of customers first try to resolve their issue independently, but less than one-third of companies offer self-service options such as a knowledge base for them to do so. A well-designed knowledge base provides access to important information 24×7 so customers can serve themselves – increasing the chance of them finding the answers and information they need on the first attempt, usually within a few minutes. Lyft, Amazon, and Wix offer great examples of what this should look and operate like.

5. Enable collaboration tools for agents to efficiently interact with back-office experts

Why put customers on hold when your agents can communicate with a manager or back-office expert in real-time? A Workstream Collaboration (WSC) application converges siloed UC and contact center applications into one tool with one application, enabling users to communicate in context regardless of who they are or where they work (ex: an agent working on the East Coast can live chat with a back-office expert working out of the company’s LA headquarters about a question while the customer is on the line). Experts within the organization become more reachable – accelerating response time – and your agents will be happier with more effortless collaboration.  

Improving your contact center’s FCR rate and response rate depends on the design, quality, and ongoing management of these solutions. On average, companies that rely on Servion’s expertise improve response and resolution time. We have helped hundreds of businesses customize and implement these and other contact center solutions to achieve their desired outcomes, offering global delivery and support capabilities, certification across a wide range of platforms, decades of developer experience, and more. Connect with our team to see how we can help you.

The post 5 Ways to Improve First Call Resolution and Increase Response Rate appeared first on Servion Blog.

With call volumes rising, customer inquiries growing in complexity, and more agents going remote, companies need to reassess their contact center technology and make new investments to improve the agent (and subsequently, customer) experience. Here’s how to tackle agent attrition and improve their experience…

Invest in workforce engagement management. Workforce engagement management is the natural evolution of workforce optimization. This is a set of applications including but not limited to call recording, performance management, quality monitoring, and Voice of the Employee (VoE) that focuses not just on scheduling and work assignments but comfort and engagement. The solution set is designed to increase agent retention through more effective scheduling, constructive feedback, increased autonomy (empowering agents to take ownership of their performance), lower stress, and a greater sense of mission and community.

 This is crucial in a remote work environment, where the relationship between agents and supervisors becomes more tenuous. The right tools are needed to support this dynamic, from messaging to coaching to speech analytics. The latter is key for supervisors to get a more in-depth view of agents’ interactions with customers as opposed to sampling just 1-2% of conversations. Advanced scheduling features also help agents better align their schedules with personal obligations and decrease leakage. Remote learning gets agents productive faster and decreases onboarding costs. The list goes on. Of course, there are also technologies that make these and other processes easier…

Enable automation and AI technologies. Where do we even begin? Let’s start with the fact that customer hold times have increased 50% since the pandemic. Agents are no longer fielding 10-second queries like password resets and balance lookups. They’re dealing with complex and emotionally charged situations where the answer may not be clear or available: travel cancellations, appeals for bill payment extensions, employment and benefit statuses. The goal is to offload repetitive, monotonous calls to automated self-service to keep live agents sharp and available for the customers who need them most.

Perhaps the easiest form of AI in the contact center is a programmable chatbot available on your website and/or mobile app. Down the road, you can introduce more advanced functionality like Conversational AI, which allows customers to speak with the bot more freely in what feels like a two-way, human-like conversation. If an interaction needs to be escalated to a live agent, the bot will provide all context of the conversation leading up to that point so the agent can better do their job. Likewise, agents can trigger automated workflows that alleviate the burden of repetitive tasks and data entry – reducing after-call work. Mobile deflection is also helpful, in which mobile callers are automatically detected by your IVR and asked if they would like to be redirected to a digital or mobile self-service experience through a link via SMS or an invitation to download your company’s mobile app (if you have one) if the customer hasn’t already. Customers can opt-out at any point during the experience to go back to the queue.

There are many other ways these technologies can be applied to make agents’ lives easier. Agent assist screen pops provide relevant information to agents in real-time as they speak with customers, helping them make better-informed decisions with less effort. AI-based verification can authenticate incoming callers with higher veracity and security at a lower cost, eliminating repetitive security questions that frustrate callers and agents alike. Automated authentication is also crucial in a world of remote work, enabling supervisors to ensure the right people are logging into systems and accessing customer data (ex: conducting a 3D face scan as part of an agent’s login process and comparing it to the government ID the company has on file).

Consider moving your contact center to the cloud. You can’t move agents to work-from-home while using technology that isn’t designed for remote work. Cloud-based systems provide flexibility and generally easier configuration than on-premise systems. As important, a cloud-based system also opens the door to technologies like AI and automation that change the game for agent engagement and satisfaction. Integrations are faster, and all agents need is a reliable internet connection.

Nearly 60% of customers will recommend a company based specifically on a positive contact center experience. These positive experiences are led by motivated, satisfied, and engaged agents. Servion can help your company put the pieces together to create the ultimate agent retention strategy. Learn more about how businesses are addressing agent attrition with Servion here and here. Or see for yourself what we can do by scheduling a demo with our contact center experts.

The post How to Retain Contact Center Agents in a Digital, Work-from-Home World appeared first on Servion Blog.

Rule #1: Clear your desk and focus on creating your overall digitization strategy. If you don’t, who will?

Creating an overall digitization strategy requires a lot of mental legwork: thinking of new business models, entry into new markets, monetization of different assets, and more. Successful leaders spend a good amount of their workday examining trends outside the company to understand what’s happening in the market and collaborating with business and IT leaders across the organization to find new pools of value. Executives may face creative roadblocks or simply not have enough time to allocate to this groundwork. It’s okay if you don’t – there’s a solution to this common challenge!

Rule #2: Don’t deceive yourself that there is an easy fix to today’s skills shortage – aggressively train and hire.

While low-code/no-code platforms have grown in popularity, allowing non-tech users to configure and customize digital solutions, a certain level of expertise is needed for succeeding with digital technologies like AI and automation long-term. On this front companies are struggling. In one study from 2019, 93% of U.S. and UK organizations cited AI as a main priority yet 51% admitted they are hindered by a lack of in-house AI talent. It can be argued these numbers have only increased since the pandemic. Not everyone will make it in today’s digital world. Organizations with the right talent will excel. 

Rule #3: Data issues account for most digitization failures. Start with building your foundation, then your data lakehouse.

About one-third of companies struggle with customer insights due to a lack of quality, usable customer data. For most businesses, the challenge lies in building a foundation. Absent a sound data architecture, you’ll be building with sand. With the right foundation, it’s estimated companies can outperform their peers by 85% in sales growth while innovating with new products and services. McDonald’s is a master at this. The brand leverages listening and benchmarking to gain deep insight into customer behaviors across different platforms and devices and compares performance across all digital teams to avoid the risk of silos. Driven by these insights, the company has rolled out digital solutions like AI drive-thrus and smart mobile app experiences to enhance the digital customer journey.

Rule #4: Lead by example and be a champion yourself. If it’s not worth your time, it’s not worth your employees’ time.  

A 2020 study by Boston Consulting Group found that 70% of digital transformation projects fall short even when leadership is aligned. One of the primary reasons for this is lack of employee adoption. Some workers may be confused by new tech while others are outright resistant to it. Consider a company that has adopted a new digital collaboration solution that’s meant to replace the disparate tools teams use for video, chat, file sharing, and project management. If teams aren’t onboard with this move for whatever reason, they may begin using their own unsanctioned collaboration tools that create more friction across the company and introduce new vulnerabilities through shadow IT.

Rule #5: It’s not about splurging on a technology smorgasbord. It’s about well-thought-out financial analysis.

With today’s digital imperative being so strong and the introduction of new flexible, cost-efficient pricing models by tech vendors, budget seems to be less of a barrier to digital transformation as it once was. Still, costs are important to consider. Certainly not every organization has the budget for major digitization. Focus on low hanging fruit and high return items, then go for them. For instance, in the example above about an all-in-one collaboration solution, the company would easily save costs by eliminating licenses for redundant collaboration apps – saving costs and freeing up budget for new digitization initiatives.

For all of these reasons, digital transformation consulting is key.

An end-to-end digital transformation consultancy can help formulate a company’s overall digitization strategy from the ground up by conducting initial discovery workshops, identifying compelling business use cases, and implementation plans. If you can’t fill talent gaps through hiring, a partner with expertise in digital technologies like AI and automation will work to architect solutions that can be managed entirely by them or jointly by them and you. This includes initial planning, designing, building your AI solution(s), and running and optimizing them for continuous improvement. This partner will also have expertise in analytics and data engineering, ensuring you can harness the power of quality customer data. They can even train and coach your employees on digital solutions for faster adoption. All of this is done with a chief goal of moving with speed and urgency while optimizing budget and saving costs whenever possible.

Learn more about Servion’s DX consulting services.

The post Five Rules for Becoming a Successful, Digital-first Organization appeared first on Servion Blog.

Here’s why enterprises are adopting CCaaS for digital and self-service capabilities:

Growth in user adoption

Few customers exclusively desire in-person service, especially for simpler tasks like account management and troubleshooting. Most want to handle their needs on their terms in a way that works best for them. This might mean starting a chat session during their lunch break or visiting a company’s help center on their website or mobile app. These digital and self-service capabilities actively improve measures of satisfaction like first contact resolution and handle time while significantly lowering interaction costs. Virtual agents, for example, can reportedly save up to $11 per query, and 99% of companies that use VA solutions report an increase in customer satisfaction as a result. A cloud deployment model makes it easy for organizations to quickly launch digital and self-service capabilities by removing the complexity associated with on-premises systems.

Easy customization with APIs

Legacy contact center solutions provide a certain degree of customization, but only when companies invest heavily in professional services or a small subset of developers who are trained on the platform. A cloud-native contact center differs in that it leverages technologies like microservices and Communications Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS), which provide APIs to expand the core platform (on-premises systems were not designed with these APIs in mind).

These cloud-enabled technologies allow organizations to become composable in nature (per Gartner, the future of business will be composable). They can create and deploy new digital and self-service capabilities in minutes without any coding skills required. CCaaS providers continue to add new APIs to integrate with other business applications, making the cloud even more enticing. About 20% of global organizations now use CPaaS APIs to enhance their digital competitiveness, and Gartner predicts nearly 90% will use CPaaS by 2023. It’s important to note, however, that not all CCaaS platforms are architecturally equal. Some are more open than others, enabling varying degrees of composability.

In-built AI capabilities that enable personalization at scale

AI provides companies with a deeper understanding of customers to enable personalization at scale across digital and self-service channels. For example, organizations can use Natural Language Processing and machine learning to create an AI-powered chatbot that engages with customers in a natural, human-like way. Customers can take care of things like paying bills and managing their accounts through this conversational interface, which will improve over time as a self-learning system. This chatbot can also conduct sentiment analysis to ensure empathic conversations, further personalizing the experience. McKinsey estimates that personalization at scale has the potential to create up to $3 trillion in new value, but this is only possible with the power of a cloud contact center platform.   

Workforce optimization

Digital and self-service capabilities are hugely helpful for reserving live agents for more complicated issues, which was listed as the No. 1 challenge by contact center professionals in 2021. Consider the strain on contact centers that the COVID-19 pandemic created. The flexibility of CCaaS and CPaaS enabled companies to manage unprecedented spikes in call volume by quickly deploying virtual agents that could help alleviate call queues, all without any developer expertise. These virtual agents were able to handle the bulk of repetitive customer queries while live agents stood by for more complex and emotional issues. Whether it’s an annual occurrence like Black Friday or another crisis that catches organizations off guard, cloud-based digital and self-service capabilities will adequately prepare them for it.

Gartner predicts that more than half of enterprise IT spending will shift to the cloud by 2025, no doubt driven by digital transformation and customer experience needs. Enterprises with on-premises contact center deployments need to consider how they’re innovating and improving with the use of digital and self-service capabilities. If you’re ready to make the move, Servion can help plan your perfect cloud migration. Click here to view our most recent success stories. Or connect with our team of Digital Engineers.

The post Digital and Self-service Are Fueling Enterprise CCaaS Adoption. Here’s Why appeared first on Servion Blog.

In today’s multichannel world, where customers choose how they want to interact, consistency is crucial. The brand promise and value must appear at every opportunity, from the website to mobile apps, social media, and call center. It is simpler said than done, and legacy solutions have faced limitations that modern platforms now lift. What is needed is a platform that transforms the frontend that customers experience and backend that business leaders can use to systematize and personalize the experience based on data and insights.

As you embark on your customer experience transformation, here are five capabilities that you must consider for your next platform:

Analytics

The right experience management platform should provide digital behavior analytics, speech analytics, and text analytics to help understand and improve the customer experience. Digital behavior analytics allow you to visualize what your customers experience in your digital channels to identify issues and opportunities and act quickly. Speech analytics enable you to understand why customers call and even analyze customer sentiment. Text analytics also help you understand sentiment as well as identify self-service opportunities. These analytics solutions sort through a vast amount of data that is too large to comprehend by humans; when exploited by people who also understand the underlying business, they prove very powerful and deliver insights that lead to better decisions.

It doesn’t stop there.

Predictive modeling

Predictive modeling is the next step after laying out the analytics foundation.

How do you figure out where to prioritize resources effectively and ensure every action you take has the maximum possible impact on the customer experience? By leveraging AI and ML technologies, you can connect drivers of customer satisfaction with a likelihood of purchase, recommend, return, and more. With predictive modeling, you can more quickly link business decisions to outcomes, clarify your customer journeys, prioritize CX resources to initiatives with the most impact, etc.

Voice of the customer

Automated, post-call surveys don’t provide the context to understand the customer experience fully. Voice surveys let customers say what they’re thinking in their own words, providing more relevant, timely, and context-based responses than a one-size-fits-all questionnaire. This increases response rates, offers more profound insights into operational performance and increases employee engagement through personalized coaching and professional development.

Likewise, digital feedback from web, chat, social media, and messaging apps allows you to generate insights into the customer journey and experience.

The feedback isn’t just a one-way flow. Once you understand the customer’s intents, sentiment, geo-and analytics-derived profile, and propensities, you can take targeted actions in real-time.

Employee experience

Customers want to deliver feedback to your business, and so do your employees. Enabling them to do so on their terms via web and mobile channels will give them a voice about their experience with your organization. Meanwhile, you can capture rich context from that feedback to take real-time and specific actions. Improve employee satisfaction continuously, develop more accurate and comprehensive journey maps, build a more people-centric culture across your company, and identify key improvement opportunities. For example, optimizing and/or redesigning your website or mobile experience, evolving the employee tools such as the agent desktop or the agent workforce management app.

Ultimately, employees dealing with customers, whether at the frontend or backend, define the customer experience. Engaged, satisfied, well-equipped employees deliver higher customer value.

Anybody can create a customer experience, but the quality of that experience is what matters.

A practical experience management platform will enable comprehensive analytics, provide feedback avenues, and enhance the employee experience so you can improve customer experience, increase operational efficiencies, and identify improvements needs. One such platform is Verint Experience Management, which Servion has successfully deployed at leading companies like Costco, Hippo, Propharma Group, and others. Servion’s expertise and focus on business outcomes help clients get the most value out of Verint’s leading experience management platform to unify the customer experience at scale, improve CX, and drive business opportunities.

Learn more about Servion and Verint’s partnership.

The post It is All About Experience Management: Here’s How to Get The Right Platform appeared first on Servion Blog.

But it’s not enough to deploy Conversational AI. Enterprises can’t assume these bots are set-it and forget-it solutions. Conversational AI requires continuous improvement and optimization to learn and improve as a self-learning system over time. If you have a conversational AI system in place or are considering one for your organization, here are some critical steps to ensure you continue improving its efficiency over time…

Monitor and measure effectiveness continuously.

Without measuring performance with honest user conversations, you’ll never know if your bot works for your customers. To measure effectiveness, you must establish success metrics and monitor them regularly. There are many metrics you can consider, including:

• Engagement rate: The percentage of total sessions that are considered engaged. An engaged session is when the user creates a topic (as opposed to the bot prompting a question or suggesting a topic), or the session ends in escalation to a live agent. You can further analyze the customer journey depending on whether the session is resolved (either by the bot or the human agent if escalated), further escalated to a supervisor, or abandoned.
• Abandon rate: the percentage of engaged sessions that are abandoned. This means the session was neither resolved nor escalated.
• Resolution rate: the percentage of resolved engaged sessions, indicated by the user acknowledging that their question has been answered or the issue has been resolved. By asking the customer to rate the session, you can measure their satisfaction score (CSAT).

Analyze transcripts and get user feedback

Collecting and analyzing transcripts of customer-VA conversations is a great way to gain valuable insights from interaction data for making critical system improvements. You can more easily identify issues customers are going through and where your bots are falling behind to improve their performance. Analyzing transcripts will also help you better understand what information your customers want so you can retrain your bot to surface it faster. You can explore a sampling of chats at a more granular level to better understand specific issues. Or you can look across all chat sessions to see what percentage of overall chats were positive, neutral, or negative. The same analysis can be conducted for conversations customers have with your conversational IVR.

You can also conduct surveys across channels to better assess your customers’ satisfaction with your bot’s performance. Voice surveys are beneficial, letting customers say what they’re thinking in their own words versus conforming to a one-size-fits-all questionnaire. You’ll get more robust insights from your customers and likely better response rates.

Iterate through train and test cycles to improve AI accuracy

A robust conversational system is built by multiple iterations, training, and testing cycles combined with ongoing monitoring and tuning. After all, there’s no such thing as a single testing phase. A general rule of thumb is to use 80% of your customer data for training and 20% for testing. Testing can include regression testing (identifying flaws in the conversation flow), NLP testing (improving your VA understanding), E2E testing (verifying the end-user experience), voice testing (understanding users on voice channels), performance testing (ensuring your VA is responsive under high load), and security testing (making your bot secure). The goal isn’t just to deploy conversational AI. It’s to continuously improve the solution by identifying defects and introducing new functionality to create more positive and memorable user experiences.

According to Gartner, 85% of AI projects fail – many never reach deployment, while others are abandoned after failing to meet expectations. This is precisely where a specialist like Servion can help:

1. Domain expertise to help identify use cases and business objectives: Most businesses rush into deploying a conversational AI solution without clearly identifying the business problems that the AI solution should be addressing. Servion, with its 25+ years of customer experience and expertise, helps identify good use cases for conversational AI and determine the KPIs for measuring success.
2. Partnership with leading Conversational AI platform providers: Servion has established partnerships with leading AI technology companies like AWS, Google, and Nuance. This allows us to recommend the best conversational AI platform that suits the customer’s requirements.
3. Readily available pool of resources: Not every business is equipped with the skilled resources required to build and maintain AI projects. Servion can tap into its talent pool that has implemented numerous conversational AI projects across several platforms.

Our clients have improved customer experience by deploying AI-powered self-service solutions and saving millions of dollars by deflecting calls to a low-cost self-service channel. Connect with our team to get a personalized demo.

Servion has helped some of the world’s most prominent brands design and deploy AI-powered conversational systems.

The post The Importance of Continuous Improvement in Conversational AI appeared first on Servion Blog.

They need to continually differentiate their services, make critical operational improvements, and orchestrate valuable new experiences for customers and employees. This requires embracing modern and highly available infrastructure (which is often cloud-based), implementing an effective data management approach, and the integration of many applications and business processes, both in the cloud and on-premises. It will also likely involve custom development, which may introduce additional security and compliance risks and require a degree of in-house talent that is often scarce.

To succeed, enterprises need to consider the following five areas:

1. Targeted technology investments: Developing new digital business and digitizing your core business require new investments in technology. How do you ensure you stay within budget? What should you prioritize as high-value investments? How do you track and maximize the value produced by those investments? A sound digital engineering approach will answer these questions first and ensure that the project’s business KPIs remain a guidepost. A question on many peoples’ mind is “What should we do about the cloud?” Some go all the way to lift and shift their entire IT to the cloud. Others adopt a hybrid model based on systematic cost-benefit analysis for individual applications or domains, and so they elect to keep a private data center architecture.
2. Agile development practices: Agility and flexibility are paramount to competitiveness. Agile techniques like scrum teams, iterative development, continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD), user involvement early in the development cycle, and productivity management contribute to faster time to revenue. Some applications may still follow a waterfall cycle as long as their architecture doesn’t lend itself to rapid iterations, but agile development is generally becoming the norm. No-code platforms can now support complex processes and should be considered for prototyping new applications and services and later for production.
3. Understanding and mastery of available technology: No one vendor offers enterprises everything for their digital transformation in the CX area. Enterprises have to select and make several different technologies work together, from customer authentication to interaction management to back-end analytics to process automation. Leading vendors are AWS, Cisco, Genesys, NICE CXOne, Google CCAI, Nuance, Verint, Avaya, Liveperson, Oracle, Twilio, UIPath, and others in the CX space. Understanding these offers and deploying experienced personnel is critical to success.
4. Modular architecture: Composability and micro-services are two essential attributes of innovative applications. Composability means using APIs that access and leverage capabilities from other systems and micro-services. The architecture is modular, with fine-grained and loosely coupled components that communicate via simple protocols.
5. Security and risk management: Financial institutions face an avalanche of compliance and security mandates, and migrating to the cloud requires providers to be certified against security and privacy (data residency, CCPA, GDPR, etc.) standards. As importantly, the implementation must be conducted according to security practices.

Most enterprises seek external help from digital engineering services providers when embarking on their digital transformation journey. When considering a digital engineering services provider, one should consider these five dimensions and select companies with a proven track record and set of skilled engineers, architects, and project managers to deliver innovative solutions and desired business outcomes.

Servion’s Digital Engineering practice has been helping financial institutions for many years and has delivered many successful projects, including:

Automating 75 banking processes for a leading banking group in Asia.

The bank was looking for an RPA partner to automate various business units such as collections, card operations, and fulfillment. The objective was to reduce manual errors and improve productivity and efficiency in opening and maintaining cards and accounts. Backed by certified engineers with RPA tools and implementation expertise, Servion conducted a thorough discovery with the client and mapped out a detailed design for a custom-built RPA solution. The solution increased throughput by 400%, reduced staffing requirements by 69%, increased uptime by 50%, and reduced processing time by 34% – all while producing annual cost savings of nearly $600k.

Accelerating dispute management for a leading credit card issuer in the U.S.

Servion designed an RPA solution to help this client automate the closure of dispute cases. The creation of a new claim in the dispute management system (Quavo) creates a shadow case in the bank’s incident tracking system that needs to be validated and closed on time. The company manages a monthly average of 35,000 cases, requiring significant funds and effort. The automated solution can complete the tracking case closure process in four hours with multiple robots in action so agents have sufficient time to review reports – all with 100% accuracy.

Enabled seamless data integration with a custom-built connector for a large bank in the US.

Servion built a robust, scalable end-to-end connector that seamlessly ensures the data integration between Avaya POM and Nice WFM. The solution included real-time data integration, enabling the connector to capture agent/state/call statistics data and also had the ability to feed historical data at periodic intervals to Nice WFM as upload files. The solution provided higher visibility on queues, call status, workload, and agent performance for supervisors and better data integration for better resource and MIS planning. 

Click here to learn more about Servion’s Digital Engineering services.

The post Embrace Digital Transformation with 5 Digital Engineering Best Practices appeared first on Servion Blog.

We can call our bank and ask, “What is my auto loan balance?” or an airline and ask, “What time is my departing flight on [date]?” Through the power of conversational AI, we can interact with an intelligent IVR or virtual assistant and get these answers right away without having to be routed through a lengthy automated phone system. According to a new report by Deepgram and Opus Research, 77% of companies are using this kind of voice technology to identify new business opportunities and 62% are using it to increase revenues.

Here’s why every company should be investing in conversational AI for customer self-service:

It elevates the customer experience by providing value in the moment when it’s needed most.

Many of us regularly use conversational AI through the devices we keep on hand to help process requests when we’re busy or inconvenienced. We ask Siri to text a friend while driving, we ask our Alexa device to play a song while in the shower, and we can “Google” questions without typing by asking Google Assistant on our phone or smart home device. We live in an age of incredible technological innovation that provides value in the moment when it’s needed most. Organizations can offer this value to their customers by allowing them to speak with a virtual assistant, either via voice (like they would using Siri, Alexa, or Google Assistant) or chat (i.e., social media messaging, webchat).

It is crucial for delivering a more personalized CX.

Conversational AI can help companies discover in conversation what customers want and provide more valuable, context-based responses. For example, if a patient calls their doctor’s office and says, “I’m looking for the results of my blood work,” the virtual assistant can proactively route them to the right person for the job – say, the nurse manager – or first double-check to see if they have activated their patient portal to avoid manual intervention (saving costs without compromising the patient experience). This is accomplished using Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning (more on this below). The virtual assistant can even conduct sentiment analysis to ensure empathetic conversations, establishing better customer relationships. We all, at some point, have raised our voices at an automated phone system in frustration. Conversational AI provides an added layer of defense against this happening.    

It allows companies to capitalize on innovations in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML)

Investment in NLP and ML has surged, especially during the pandemic as companies work to deliver seamless, contactless service. Each technology is separate but goes hand-in-hand for making conversational AI work. NLP helps analyze, interpret, and understand spoken language. ML gets applications to learn and act like humans do (based on this analysis) with the ability to improve over time, on its own or supervised. It’s crucial that you invest in NLP and ML properly, as these technologies help ensure the accuracy of language analysis.

As with any technology, fine-tuning will be needed as customers engage with your conversational AI solution (when a virtual assistant doesn’t understand a customer’s request, you can track those misunderstood intents to make your conversational interfaces smarter). Many companies find a Managed Services Provider (MSP) crucial for this reason, as the provider comes alongside you, understands what issues your organization is facing, and then works to architect AI solutions that can be managed entirely by them or jointly by them and you.

It provides “always-on” customer service in a cost-effective way

An essential requirement for customer excellence is the ability to be “always on.” In other words, providing trusted assistance 24×7 when and how a customer needs it. Conversational AI is designed for this purpose, helping customers find the answers they need on their own as if they were speaking with a live human.

In this way, a mother with a fussy newborn can call the child’s primary care group at 3 a.m. and be greeted by a virtual assistant who can point her in the direction of online resources for better understanding the infant’s non-life-threatening symptoms. A customer can talk with a chatbot on their bank’s website outside of regular hours to resolve a password reset request after a suspicious activity has been detected. Life gets busy. Conversational AI helps companies deliver quality service at scale at a much lower cost compared to live agents (one study found that AI-powered chatbots saved banks $127M in 2019 alone).

Servion has partnerships with today’s top conversational AI technology providers including AWS, Genesys, Google, NICE, Nuance, Verint, and more to help enterprises improve customer experience and reduce costs. Bring your conversational AI ideas to us and start elevating your self-service strategy.

The post Why Every Company Should Make Conversational AI Part of their Self-service Strategy appeared first on Servion Blog.

Servion, a certified Genesys partner, is one of the few solution providers that can sell, deploy, integrate, customize, support, and deliver best-in-class customer experiences globally on the Genesys contact center platform. The company seamlessly integrates the Genesys contact center platforms with CRMs, customer portals, and more to provide agents with a single pane of glass access to data and functions. Servion also makes its contact center support expertise available through its 24×7 managed services.  

Ken Archer, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Channels at Genesys said, “Servion has a long history as specialists in designing, implementing, and delivering innovative digital experiences for some of the world’s most customer-centric brands. We are pleased to onboard Servion to the Genesys partner ecosystem and we look forward to working together to offer organisations best-in-class customer experiences by leveraging Genesys Cloud CX, AI and digital solutions.” 

“Servion is pleased to enter into this partnership with Genesys and bring the industry-leading cloud communications and omnichannel solutions from Genesys to our clients. This partnership with Genesys further reinforces Servion’s commitment to delivering innovative and personalized experiences, building lifetime customers, and increasing customer value,” said Laurent Philonenko, CEO at Servion. 

About Servion Global Solutions 

For more than 25 years, customer-centric brands have trusted Servion to design, build, run, and optimize Contact Centers and Customer Experience (CX) solutions. Servion delivers complete solutions for businesses to innovate in providing digital experiences using the best available technologies while maximizing their existing investments. Our 800 CX professionals apply their passion and deep domain expertise to the entire design-build-run-optimize solution lifecycle. Servion has helped 600 enterprises across the globe deliver great experiences to their customers, partners, and employees. For more information, visit https://servion.com.

The post Servion Partners with Genesys to Deliver World-class Contact Center Solutions and Customer Experiences appeared first on Servion Blog.

Here are some valuable AI use cases for the next-gen contact center:

Reduced Call Volumes

Forty percent of contact center managers surveyed by IDC this year said their facility experienced higher than usual call volumes – far more than their trained employees could handle. AI is poised to transform the contact center by reducing call volumes without compromising quality of service or operational efficiency.

Consider Conversational AI, which allows various AI and automation technologies to interact with people in a humanlike way. Instead of browsing, searching, and navigating for the information they need, customers can ask questions directly, get answers, and take action using a conversational interface such as an intelligent IVR or a voice or chat bot. Contact centers can seamlessly deflect or redirect customers to a digital self-service experience for handling basic requests like paying bills, password resets, and managing their accounts so they can maximize their most expensive resource: agents.

Better CX Measurement

Improving customer experience measurement is at the top of every contact center manager’s list of goals. To do this, they turn to a number of CX metrics like Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), Average Handle Time, Customer Effort, and Net Promoter Score (NPS).

Consider intelligent routing (also referred to as attribute-based routing and smart routing). Contact centers can automatically route an incoming caller to the best-matched resource within the facility or throughout the entire organization to create better service experiences and brand affinity. Also consider Conversational AI, which includes several different technologies such as sentiment analysis, intent recognition, and speech analytics. These technologies bring intelligence and scale to a variety of touchpoints and channels, enabling organizations to not only streamline service but understand what customers really want in conversation in real-time to better measure CX. Also consider speech biometrics, which improves agent efficiency and average handle time while delivering more personalized, outcome-based service.

Greater Agent Productivity

Customer service teams are facing extreme changes and challenges, especially given the COVID-19 pandemic. They are expected to seamlessly handle increasingly complex and emotionally charged interactions, many while working from home as organizations embrace blended and remote work models. AI is an invaluable investment in this area.

Applications of intelligent self-service like digital deflection and voice and chat bots allow customers to update information, submit requests, check on order statuses, and more – even as interaction volumes spike, without needing to add additional agents. At the same time, you’ll be freeing up live agents to more confidently handle complex interactions, take care of post-call work, etc. By 2023, Juniper Research estimates that businesses will save over 2.5 billion customer service hours as a result of implementing applications of AI like chatbots. 

Solutions on the Market

There are plenty of solutions available that will supercharge your contact center with AI. For example, Google Contact Center AI comes with a Virtual Agent platform that allows you to create voice and chat bots that automate interactions via voice or text and hand off the conversation to a live agent when the bot is unable to help a customer. The solution also comes with Insights, a module that uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to identify call drivers and sentiment so you can better measure CX. There’s also Amazon Web Services Contact Center Intelligence (AWS CCI), which comes with its own set of features to improve quality management, customer satisfaction, and agent productivity.

Servion exists to help organizations determine which AI solution is best for their contact center. We’ll help you figure out what your business really needs, even managing everything for you so you can stop training, start gaining, and continuously optimize and evolve your AI investments within the contact center.

Talk to us today to see how we can help you.

The post 80% of CX leaders believe AI enhances the Contact Center. Here’s how to start benefiting appeared first on Servion Blog.

• COVID-19 forced governments to provide public services differently. AI and automation technologies have become significant investments for proactive outreach (anticipating citizens’ needs versus managing demand reactively) and offsetting high call volumes using digital self-service applications. Digital technology has opened the floodgates to providing more accessible and personalized services.
• Millions of government employees began working remotely within weeks of the viral outbreak. Telecommuting has become the norm, even for intelligence agencies employees who once had to work in secured and authorized facilities. Governments are adapting to a new reality as they reopen in a different environment.
• The pace with which governments move has dramatically changed. For decades, regulation in the public sector was a lengthy and inflexible process. Now, regulation is agile and adaptive, with service procurement happening fast, flexibly, and efficiently.

As we forge ahead, governments need a cloud contact center platform (Contact Center-as-a-Service – CCaaS) to improve citizen-facing services, workforce productivity and lay a better foundation for growth and innovation. CCaaS solutions use a subscription-based licensing model to provide cloud-based contact center software. The capabilities of CCaaS often surpass those of on-premises solutions because they are built with a high degree of flexibility and integration interfaces.  

Here’s how the public sector benefits:

Elevated CX with personalized, digital service: All customer interactions start or move between digital channels like chat, SMS, social media, and in-app messaging. CCaaS allows customers to choose the option they feel most comfortable with, enabling organizations to quickly meet the needs of every customer while accommodating more inquires faster. This became vital during the pandemic as interaction volumes – especially for things like unemployment claims – hit the roof. Replacing your decades-old legacy contact center with a cloud-based system allows for newer, more dynamic customer experiences.

Intelligent, automated self-service: CCaaS allows for self-service applications like knowledge bases and chat and voice bots that measurably improve customer effort, average handle time, and customer satisfaction. CCaaS also enables organizations to redirect or deflect customers calling from a mobile device to a digital self-service experience. For example, a public health department could redirect mobile callers calling about the COVID-19 vaccine to a related FAQ on their website. Doing so can help save valuable costs and time. According to No Jitter, LA County achieved 60% cost savings using Amazon’s CCaaS solution, Amazon Connect, by reducing hold times and automating interactions.

Automated notifications: Enable cloud-based notifications to automatically reach out to citizens with alerts. Many CCaaS solutions include optional response tracking, location requests, text interaction, and auto-forms. For example, a DMV could use this to create a virtual waiting system for residents needing to take care of things like driver’s licenses or passport renewals. Governments can also send proactive notifications to reach out to large groups of citizens to update them on changes in policies, procedures, hours of operation, and more.

Next-level agility: On-premises contact center solutions have been relied on for decades and are not inferior. The demands of the digital era, however, have made them less viable as we move forward. Scalability and flexibility are essential to businesses – now more than ever after the effects of the pandemic – and CCaaS supports these concerns. Companies can easily scale to accommodate increased demand, move faster to adapt and improve, and much more.

Data consolidation and management: Accenture reported last year that 84% of citizens are willing to share personal information with government agencies if it would enhance customer service. The unified nature of CCaaS enables organizations to create an effective, enterprise-wide data management strategy that leverages the kind of intelligence needed to deliver outstanding citizen experiences. This is especially important in the public sector, which has notoriously lagged in this area.

Better employee/agent experience – from anywhere: CCaaS solutions provided by vendors like Google and Amazon offer tools that empower employees/agents to work more productively with better context, responsiveness, and satisfaction. For example, Agent Assist for Chat (part of Google’s CCAI offering) has been proven to help agents manage up to 28% more conversations concurrently and respond to chats up to 15% faster. These solutions can be used wherever agents happen to be working, using any device.

As an end-to-end technology specialist who has worked with some of the world’s largest government agencies, Servion can help you take advantage of the speed, flexibility (seamless scalability), and cost-efficiency (no CAPEX investment) of CCaaS.

Provide your customers/citizens the absolute best. Schedule a meeting with our CX specialists to discuss your organization’s CCaaS needs further.

The post How Does the Public Sector Benefit from CCaaS? appeared first on Servion Blog.

This agreement aims to facilitate the digital transformation of companies in the Middle East and further strengthen the UAE’s position among the top digital economies in the world.   

Under the partnership, the Seed Group will help Servion connect with the top decision-makers in government as well as private sectors in the Emirates and the wider Middle East and North Africa region. It will facilitate Servion to help enterprises design, build, run and optimize their contact centres and focus on unlocking the benefits of new technologies such as cloud and AI to enable self-service and accelerate innovation in the region.

Hisham Al Gurg, CEO of the Seed Group and the Private Office of Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum, said, “The UAE’s digital economy is witnessing phenomenal growth as enterprises are constantly looking for newer technologies to generate greater business and revenue sources. Our strategic partnership with Servion Global Solutions will open up new avenues for the businesses in the Middle East to develop the right customer management strategies with latest digital offerings that will give them the much-needed competitive advantage.”

“Seed Group’s extensive knowledge and expertise of the MENA business landscape and its commitment to advancing the interests of its partners will definitely help Servion flourish in the region.”

For more than 25 years, Servion Global Solutions has been trusted by customer-centric brands for architecting, implementing, and managing contact centres and customer experience solutions. Thus far, it has helped more than 600 enterprises across the globe deliver great experiences by empowering them with insights across the entire user journey and channels, leveraging predictive analytics to make informed decisions, and improving customer experience. 

Laurent Philonenko, CEO, Servion Global Solutions, said, “We are pleased to enter into a strategic partnership with the Seed Group, whose guidance will play a pivotal role in our success in the Middle East. We are committed to delivering complete solutions for businesses to innovate in providing digital experiences using the best available technologies while maximising their existing investments.” 

The Seed Group has become a notable diversified company operating in technology, healthcare, tourism and hospitality, and real estate sectors in the Gulf region. Over the past 16 years, it has formed strategic alliances with leading global companies representing diverse regions to accelerate their sustainable market entry and presence within the MENA region.

Servion’s partnership with the Seed Group will give it access to one of the fastest-growing economies and further opportunities with prospective clients based out of the MENA region. 

About Seed Group

Over the past 16 years, Seed Group has formed strategic alliances with leading global companies representing diverse regions and industries. These companies have propelled their business interests and goals in the Middle East and North Africa region through the support and strong base of regional connections of the Seed Group. The Group’s goal is to create mutually beneficial partnerships with multinational organisations and to accelerate their sustainable market entry and presence within the MENA region. Seed Group has been a key point in the success of all its partners in the region, helping them reach their target customers and accelerate their businesses. The Private Office was established by Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum to directly invest in or assist potential business opportunities in the region, which meet The Private Office’s criteria. For more information, visit www.seedgroup.com. 

About Servion

For more than 25 years, Servion has been trusted by customer-centric brands for designing, building, running and optimizing Contact Centres and Customer Experience (CX) solutions. Servion delivers complete solutions for businesses to innovate in providing digital experiences using the best available technologies while maximizing their existing investments. Our 800 CX professionals apply their passion and deep domain expertise to the entire design-build-run-optimize solution lifecycle. Servion has helped 600 enterprises across the globe deliver great experiences to their customers, partners, and employees. For more information, visit https://servion.com.

The post Seed Group partners with US-based Servion to help Middle East firms improve Digital Customer Service appeared first on Servion Blog.

• In a recent study from 451 Research, 27% of enterprises cited a shortage of cloud architects as a limiting factor in their machine learning efforts. Machine engineers, software engineers, and data scientists are also in short supply.
• Even mature AI adopters are challenged by skills gaps. Deloitte found that almost half of companies that consider themselves seasoned in AI (defined as having a high number of deployments at the highest sophistication) rate their current AI skill gap as either moderate, major, or extreme.

Implementing just a chatbot is no longer enough. Companies need to scale the benefits they’re seeing with AI in the contact center to identify new CX opportunities while continuously optimizing and evolving their AI applications. To do this, organizations should look at managed services for AI.

Why a Managed Service Provider for AI?

A managed service provider (MSP) comes alongside you, understands what issues your organization is facing, and then works to architect AI solutions that can be managed entirely by them or jointly by them and you. This includes initial planning (creating a roadmap that prioritizes AI initiatives linked to business value), designing (consulting needs and requirements), building your AI solution(s), and running and optimizing them for continuous improvement.

Figure out what your business really needs

An MSP not only helps with development, deployment, and management of AI solutions, but will help consult you on your organization’s specific AI needs and requirements. This includes infrastructure (cloud, on-premise), applications, digital channel overlay, self-service, robotic process automation (RPA), integrations, reporting and analytics, and more. They’ll help you assess the current state of your organization by reviewing all existing IT infrastructure and applications, looking at both current and targeted performance metrics, and designing transition timelines in a way that saves compared to current costs.

Stop training and start gaining 

Your organization will no longer need to worry about what type of talent is needed, where that talent will come from, and (perhaps most stressful of all) training efforts. You can start benefiting from the scale and intelligence of AI without having to spend months training developers and AI staff. These employees can be better utilized, and you can spend more time providing training to customer-facing employees on how to use AI in their jobs to immediately improve CX. An MSP will also take care of service integration and management across your various AI partnerships – being a one-stop shop for all contractual relationships – while offering even more value with their ecosystem of leading tech vendors. You’ll benefit from a single point of contact across all of your AI systems and applications.

Continuously optimize and evolve

An MSP will provide the continuous attention your AI applications need. While you’re busy focusing on other high priority initiatives, your service provider will be constantly watching and analyzing your AI data as new intents emerge, new products are launched, and customers say different things. With Servion, for example, you’ll get ongoing reports and analytics, benchmarking, virtual assistant tuning and expansion, process optimization, agile application maintenance, call center routing and self-service updates, user management, availability/SLA management, and more – everything you need to create new operational efficiencies in a continuous improvement model.

Here’s how organizations are using Servion Managed Services for AI:

• One of the fastest growing international banks in the UAE deployed Servion’s DTMF-based intelligent self-service application – coupled with multi-lingual support, caller identification, and SMS messaging – to update its legacy solution and offer personalized outbound communication to its customers.
• Servion helped North America’s leading telecom service provider implement a new feature in its IVR system which offers customers the option to continue waiting for the next available agent or immediately connect to a chat service. The new feature drastically reduced costs, and the organization discovered that 50% of its customers preferred chat over voice call support.
• A global contact center software leader chose Servion to design and build a new, user-friendly, multi-browser, device-agnostic chat application with rich UI. In doing so, the organization was able to increase mobile usage among its customers by nearly 30% and enhance its user experience with 3x faster load times.

Create new operational efficiencies, revitalize the role of your customer service/contact center, and address complex challenges that impact CX. Servion provides 24×7 support using a combination of global resources and dedicated on-site engineers. We have four network operations centers (NOCs) located worldwide, and our team currently manages 100 customers, 32,000 agents and 200,000 endpoints and ports.

Click here to schedule a meeting with one of our specialists to learn more about Servion Managed Services.  

The post Managed Services for AI: Scale, Protect, and Continuously Improve appeared first on Servion Blog.

Self-service has clearly taken a lead, yet businesses can’t discount the human element of customer experience. They need to combine the automation of self-service with the personal connection customers crave. This means prioritizing self-service options like intelligent knowledge databases, chatbots, and conversational AI with seamless transfer to a live agent when needed. In other words, creating a service experience that blends both digital channels and human assistance.

Example of Blended Service

A customer buys a product in-person with a great experience from the in-store sales associate. They bring the product home; however, they discover that it is missing a piece. They go to the company’s website to obtain a customer service number but instead see the option to communicate with an AI-powered digital assistant. The customer begins communicating with a conversational bot which, after assessing the situation, escalates the interaction to a live agent. The agent receives all context of the conversation and is able to smoothly continue the interaction. The agent apologizes and schedules the missing piece to be shipped out immediately. They also offer the customer a 15% off coupon for a future purchase.

We can see here both digital and human channels working together to enable a seamless, effortless, and unified customer experience. This arrangement offers the best of both worlds: the time and cost-savings of AI enabled self-service capabilities with the intuitive, emotional connection provided by human agents. This combination allows brands to provide the ultimate sought-after service experience; one that provides customers with relevance and immediacy while helping businesses lower costs and minimize use of their most expensive resource: agents.

Why Prioritize Blended Service Experiences

Enhance both agent and self-service abilities

Agents are able to help self-service technologies improve, and these technologies help agents do their jobs better in return. Chatbots, for example, help agents by suggesting responses, taking actions, predicting intent, and issuing automatic replies. At the same time, agents can train chatbots by providing transcripts and tagging conversations so the technology can improve over time. Customers then get the leveled-up automation for their simple needs and the dynamic human interaction required if they need more complex problem-solving.

Prevent self-service failure

No matter how well your self-service solution is implemented, there is always the chance that it won’t meet your customers’ expectations. As mentioned earlier, your business can’t discount the human element of customer experience. Doing so is a one-way ticket to damaging your brand and customer relationships. For whatever reason your self-service options aren’t meeting a customer’s needs, you can rest assured a human can step in to supplement what AI cannot do – rescuing the interaction and reinstating the customer’s trust in your brand. 

Provide options to your customers

A blended experience allows you to provide options for your customers depending on their need and level of comfort with self-service. For example, a customer may suspect their issue is more complex than what can be addressed by AI. If your self-service system is set up to recognize that a customer would rather work with an agent, they can skip the self-service portal that would only frustrate them. This approach makes the customer feel as though they are in control of the interaction from the beginning, empowering them and cementing their affinity for your brand. Generally, blended service enables you to cater to most customers who prefer going through self-service channels to start their interaction with human back-up if needed.

Gain flexibility for the future

As the customer experience evolves, it’s clear there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to achieving stellar CX. With both advanced technology and superior agent talent, your organization will be ready for all current and future customer preferences.

Want to learn more? Servion is a consultative, end-to-end technology specialist ready to help your business master self-service and blended service. Reach out to schedule a free consulting session with our CX specialists. 

The post COVID Hyper Accelerated Self-service: Here’s what organizations must do now appeared first on Servion Blog.

Economies may be reopening, but many customers have grown accustomed to the ease and convenience of digital service channels having no choice but to adopt them during the pandemic. Omnichannel will continue to permeate organizations as customers weigh their options moving forward. Some will continue the habits they picked up during COVID, using multiple different channels for brand engagement, while others with underlying conditions will have no choice out of an abundance of caution.   

To connect with customers and win loyalty, businesses should reevaluate and enhance their omnichannel approach. Here are two things to keep in mind:

Understand your customers’ propensity to use multiple channels. Companies need to use data to understand which customers are most likely to engage in cross-channel service journeys – now more than ever given the changes brought about by COVID-19 – and what those journeys look like. Research shows, for example, that 47% of U.S. Gen Z customers research items on their mobile devices while shopping at brick-and-mortar locations. Older generations accustomed to simply picking up the phone have had no choice but to adapt to new digital service models, including several new steps in the customer experience. Grocery shopping is a perfect example: by the summer of 2020, 68% of customers were ordering groceries online for home delivery with many of these people being part of older, more vulnerable populations. Today, customers can choose from tens of channels for connecting to a services or sales organization, hence meeting the customer where they are is crucial. It’s not just voice, chat or email anymore; it is mobile messaging too, and this proliferation has no end in sight. Research shows that there are 1.3 billion FB Messenger users globally, and more than 20 billion messages are exchanged between businesses and users monthly on the platform. The capability to keep adding channels for your customers will remain front and center.

Identify the two or three most important cross-channel customer journeys for your business, then build from there. According to McKinsey, an omnichannel approach that focuses on top interaction models – versus offering the widest range of interaction options – can accelerate resolution times, create those “moments of delight” that keep customers coming back, and increase employees’ satisfaction and success rates. Some of the top cross-channel customer journeys today include online chat (live or AI) to phone, mobile app to phone, and SMS (text) to web. Another big trend we’re seeing is the de-escalation of a phone call to a mobile or digital alternative for self-service, otherwise known as digital redirection. In this way, companies can detect when a customer is calling from their mobile device and offer them the option to instead be redirected to a mobile or digital self-service experience versus waiting for a live agent. The self-service experience can be escalated back to a live agent at any time, with the agent receiving context on the self-service experience along with all other important customer data.

Customer journeys are nonlinear and unpredictable, now more than ever with the impacts of COVID-19. As an end-to-end technology specialist, Servion can help you focus on what matters most for providing an efficient omnichannel experience: consistent, uninterrupted, and seamless across the channels of your choice. Learn more here.

The post Reevaluating your omnichannel customer experience (CX): What matters most appeared first on Servion Blog.

Organizations need to consider network investments that will help them cost-effectively manage contact center change and increase their agility. The answer is Software-defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN). Traditional WANs based on conventional routers (like MPLS) were never designed for today’s cloud- and digital-first imperatives. Conversely, SD-WAN is a virtual WAN architecture designed to fully support applications wherever they are hosted: on-premises data centers, public, private or hybrid clouds, and SaaS services like Salesforce, Office 365 or cloud contact centers. SD-WAN allows a business to combine and manage multiple types of network connections including MPLS, allowing them to cost-effectively mix and match network links according to content type or priority. With centralized visibility and increased control, SD-WAN simplifies network administration while maximizing agility, reliability, and contact center quality of service.

Here are three reasons why SD-WAN is essential for contact center operations and the customer experience:

1. Contact centers can’t capitalize on the cloud without an efficient way of connecting to it.

Gartner predicts that Contact Center-as-a-Service (CCaaS) will be the preferred adoption model in 50% of contact centers by 2022. Organizations need a network that is equipped to keep up with the high demands of new cloud contact center deployments like robotic process automation (RPA), speech biometrics, conversational AI, and automated self-service. SD-WAN enables organizations to maximize their available bandwidth (improving quality of customer communications), prioritize critical contact center applications by choosing network paths with the least packet loss and lowest jitter, and solve cloud application performance problems with deep network visibility and real-time control.

2. Remote and hybrid work is here to stay, especially for contact center workers.

Research from CCW found that only 7% of companies anticipate returning to a “traditional” contact center model even after the pandemic is officially over. SD-WAN is crucial for enabling seamless remote work, helping contact centers effectively manage traffic spikes while increasing agent productivity by eliminating lag time and improving application accessibility. Regardless of where agents are located, they’ll have reliable, on-demand access to the bandwidth-intensive cloud-based applications they need. Built-in security is also imperative, protecting customer data and ensuring compliance as agents work from the comfort of their home. 

3. Cost-effectively scale with higher reliability and greater WAN utilization.

Contact center managers need to ensure they can seamlessly scale to the number of locations, users, and customer interactions they need to support. More locations, users, and interactions leveraging bandwidth-intensive applications like video and AI can lead to a high per bit cost of MPLS bandwidth that for many organizations is out of reach. Conversely, SD-WAN aggregates various transport media into one single solution, making it easy to add additional bandwidth as needed. Organizations get higher reliability and greater WAN utilization from existing MPLS links at a far more practical cost.

Other key benefits of SD-WAN for the contact center include:

• Centralized management. SD-WAN solutions come with a complete view of the network, clouds and data centers, enabling administration from a single pane of glass.
• Nonstop, unimpaired application uptime: SD-WAN virtually guarantees 100% connectivity uptime by using a mix of Internet connections. If one connection fails, bandwidth is simply transferred to another.
• Integrated security, policy, and orchestration: unlike MPLS, SD-WAN includes end-to-end encryption across the entire network including Internet, with full authentication of devices and endpoints. SD-WAN also provides traffic partitioning so that the call center traffic is protected from internal or external threats.

Finding the Best SD-WAN Solution for Your Contact Center

Servion’s SD-WAN, powered by Cisco, is a robust, centralized cloud management offering that can meet every complex need of the modern, connected contact center. Our extensive ecosystem of best-of-breed partnerships for cloud contact centers all can benefit from SD-WAN. Our customers can rapidly and seamlessly take advantage of innovations, support heavy data consumption and bandwidth-intensive applications, and address new security threats as they arise. We help contact center organizations:

• Increase application performance and availability to improve productivity.
• Enhance agility and responsiveness to accelerate time-to-market and competitiveness.
• Simplify WAN edge architecture and management to drive new operational efficiencies.
• Improve WAN security and reduce risk.
• And of course, lower overall WAN costs.

Give your customers the experience they desire. Learn more about Servion’s SD-WAN solutions.

The post Why SD-WAN is essential for the modern, connected contact center appeared first on Servion Blog.

A COE is a centralized (sometimes virtual) unit of dedicated people within an organization that acts as a reliable, go-to source of information for everyone within the company for improving all things CX. Whether an employee is in Marketing, Operations, or Product Development, in San Francisco, London, or France, they will know where to go to find new CX process protocols, metrics, and important customer data.

Why Centers of Excellence Make Sense

• You’ll gain much-needed access to subject matter experts: Beyond leading technologies, access to expertise remains a challenge for many organizations. A 2018 study conducted by McKinsey found that companies that move top talent to high-priority initiatives are 2x more likely to outperform their competitors in the form of returned shareholder value.
• You’ll be able to innovate and adapt to changing conditions faster than your competitors: This access to expertise will enable your organization to innovate much more rapidly. In a recent survey, 80% of companies that expected to implement AI by 2019 failed due to lack of access to data scientists. Meanwhile, according to PwC, 61% of companies say the solution to reaching strategic goals is collaborating more across functions with greater expertise.
• The stronger your focus, the stronger your output and achievements: According to Gartner, 95% of organizations that establish a Cloud Center of Excellence will deliver measurable cloud success through 2021. Research from McKinsey found that 60% of top-performing companies in advanced analytics have a “center of gravity” to drive their analytics efforts forward. In a separate study, Gartner found that 50% of organizations with more than three AI projects will establish a Center of Excellence for AI by 2022. In short, establishing a COE works.

Examples of CX Centers of Excellence in Action

• Think of your marketing department. You’ve got your Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), your Marketing Manager, your Social Media Manager, various product marketing managers, your customer service executive and more. You may have these heads of various marketing and service-related functions gather in a COE to establish best practices for social and digital or live customer care, serving as a go-to source of information for relevant customer data, shared customer history, and different types of customized content that can be used across other departments for upselling and delivering better service.
• You may create a centralized portal that is accessible to every person within the organization regardless of location. This kind of CX Center of Excellence can include formulas for calculating whatever it is you’re looking to improve on (ex: cost-based effects of efforts across different business functions). Over the course of weeks or months, you’ll begin to see gaps of where data was previously missing across different business functions or office locations. In this way, the CX COE can act as the single point of access for every office to source all change direction, internal and external communications strategies, and all the templates and instructions (employee training materials) needed for driving change and improvements.
• You can hire an end-to-end, consultative technology specialist to act as an external centralized unit of dedicated people for your organization. Many enterprises turn to Servion for their CX COE due to our large team of certified engineers spread globally that covers the complete lifecycle of customer experience solutions.

Signs of a Great CX Center of Excellence

• Your organization will actively improve CX and create new operational efficiencies with recommendations on best practices, emerging technologies, and shared services in a continuous improvement model.
• You’ll be able to revitalize the role of your customer service/contact center by ensuring timely access to accurate information while maximizing the experience of your employees.
• You’ll be able to more quickly address complex challenges that impact the experiences of your customers with access to the right data at the right time, and better collaboration with key stakeholders organization wide.

See how Servion can help stand up a CX Center of Excellence for your organization.

The post Creating a CX Center of Excellence – Their Benefits, Insights, and Examples appeared first on Servion Blog.

 Cloud success is less about tools and more about strategy (and more specifically, a partner who ensures your cloud strategy is designed to drive business value). The right provider will act as a partner who works closely with you to support you on the core aspects of your cloud journey. These can include customer journey design (automation, self-service), the agent/employee experience (analytics, workforce engagement), operational intelligence (proactive engagement), contact center optimization (digital customer service), and productivity and cost. All of these things must work effortlessly together for customer service and operational excellence.

Why Leading Enterprise Organizations Choose Servion for Cloud

Servion’s breadth of technology solutions, capabilities, and expertise uniquely positions us to be able to handle any customer’s specific cloud needs. We help develop the right approach by ensuring clarity on the desired business outcome or end result, and we utilize our industry-leading talent to address customers’ core business issues along the way.

1. Certification across a wide range of leading platforms (Cisco, Amazon Connect, Twilio, NICE InContact, Genesys, Five9) and applications (Verint, NICE, Calabrio, Google, Jacada, etc.) enables us to plan, design, and support cloud solutions in alignment with customers’ specific CX and business requirements. Customers never have to fit a mold or be restricted by only what a vendor can offer. This vendor-agnostic approach is rare in the industry, uniquely positioning Servion as a trusted advisor to assess objectives, and chart and execute a safe and efficient transition to the cloud.
2. We have a large team of certified engineers spread globally that covers the complete lifecycle of customer experience solutions, from architecting to implementation to ongoing management, extending our value beyond just selling and installation.
3. We have expertise on the end-to-end process for cloud (we use a signature four-pronged assessment to develop a customer’s onboarding or transition plan), as well as expertise in change management to accompany teams during and after the migration. Beyond migrating the ACD, IVR and workforce optimization to the cloud, several more aspects such as connectivity are included in the migration plan.
4. Our industry-leading managed services go far beyond traditional support. With an unparalleled industry position, we help our customers focus on innovation and future ways to transform. From reactive break-fix services to proactive and predictive analytics, we offer a complete suite of 24×7 managed services – on-premises and in the cloud.
5. We have 20+ years of application development and integration practice. Our experts can develop feature-rich business applications based on CCaaS platforms APIs and open industry standards that enable customers to reach new levels of business performance with the right balance of speed, cost, and quality for their needs.

How Organizations Are Using Servion for Cloud 

• We helped one of the largest chemical companies in the world set up a cloud contact center and implement an efficient remote work strategy during COVID-19, allowing agents to stay safe at their homes and continue to address spikes in call volume.
• We deployed several sophisticated cloud contact centers for a leading pharmaceutical company, in Asia and in the US, in just a few weeks from project launch to production. We used our packages on top of one of the leading platforms.
• A leading international bank in the UAE turned to Servion to design and develop an intelligent self-service application that includes promotional messages, multi-lingual support, caller identification, card activation and more.
• We helped a leading call recording provider re-engineer its contact center with a more modern, responsive UI for better customer experience and workflow automation, reducing supervisors’ workloads by 50%.
• Amidst the disruption of 2020, Europe’s leading pharma company turned to Servion for a complete contact center solution that included ubiquitous coverage for multiple countries and cities with support for contact center platforms from multiple different vendors such as Cisco, NICE inContact, and Bucher & Suter (B&S). We not only stepped in to advise this customer on making necessary improvements, but provided next-gen, 24×7 managed services – on premise and in the cloud – for customer experience management and day-to-day operations.

Move to the cloud with confidence. Continue the conversation with Servion’s team of cloud experts.

The post Why Servion for Cloud — Successful Strategies, Satisfied Customers appeared first on Servion Blog.

Here’s what you’ll gain by putting the right AI and automation tools in place…

A deeper understanding of your customers based on data and speech analytics.

See exactly what a customer wants, how they feel, and what actions they’re likely to take – all based on key words or phrases spoken in conversation. Speech analytics can also help you identify shining moments for your employees (or conversely, opportunities for improvement) based on the words or phrases they speak during voice interactions.

Consider an agent (Tonya) who is on a call with Arthur, a customer of a few years. AI-powered speech analytics displays to Tonya in real-time via her agent desktop that Arthur is becoming increasingly frustrated: his speech stammers, he’s using more assertive words, and he has started to interrupt the conversation. With this data, she can see, hear, and understand how Arthur is processing his experience, enabling her to make high-quality decisions in the context of the service experience to keep him happy (versus Arthur hanging up the phone, frustrated, or worse, and blasting Tonya on his post-call satisfaction survey).

Better customer loyalty and brand relationships with AI-powered predictive analytics.

Machine learning and predictive analysis give you the ability to detect valuable behavioral patterns in your customers. Let’s say Arthur has interacted with your customer support team a handful of times over the last few months. Your business has been able to learn through data analytics that he has shorter and usually more successful interactions with support over the phone in contrast to other channels like chatbots; that he prefers to call on Thursday nights; and that he needed help with a problem last month which led to him threatening to cancel his service with you. When Arthur calls about another perceived problem, predictive behavioral analytics seamlessly display these patterns to the employee set to service Arthur. You can even program the technology to suggest targeted discounts and promotions that will appease Arthur to build his loyalty.   

Faster issue resolution and higher customer satisfaction with AI-powered smart routing.  

Smart routing – or intelligent routing – is AI’s way of replacing legacy call queue systems to pair a customer directly with an employee that is best suited to address his or her needs. This can be an agent within your contact center or anyone else within your organization, regardless of what department they work in or where they are located. This match can be based on almost anything: location, demographics, employee expertise/skills, a customer’s personality, their history with your organization, or any other custom field you create.

Let’s stick with our customer, Arthur. Your data analysis shows that he is an older man who can be longwinded, has difficulty hearing, and often needs things pronounced several times. With this information, your routing system automatically pairs him with Darla – known for her patience and high success rate with challenging customer calls. They are both native English speakers with the same N.Y.-based accent, which makes understanding Darla a pleasant, easy experience for Arthur.

Higher productivity, fewer escalations, and more satisfied and empowered employees with AI Agent Assist.

Agent Assist is an AI-based contact center tool that empowers customer service employees with intelligent guidance in real-time, recommending the next best action to help quickly resolve any customer issue. Let’s look at Arthur and Darla: as the two talk, Agent Assist can act as Darla’s assistant that listens to Arthur’s speech patterns, analyzes his tone and conversation content, and then prompts Darla with phrases and actions to take that will help her deliver effortless, memorable, and personalized service. Darla does not need to bring in a supervisor or engage any other team members to solve Arthur’s issue as Agent Assist proactively provides her with information to make sure Arthur feels as though he’s getting a unique and satisfying experience.

Not sure where to start? Servion is a consultative, end-to-end technology specialist ready to help your business integrate AI and automation to deliver unmatched customer experiences (CX). Reach out for a free consulting session with our CX Specialists.

The post It’s not about “just” Service, it’s about experiences: Impress your customers with AI and Automation appeared first on Servion Blog.

There are several categories of business requirements that will influence your choice. When meeting with vendors, come prepared with answers to the following questions:

What kind of compliance measures must you meet?

Consider general compliance requirements that most states in the U.S. have, such as getting consent from both parties (customer and agent) to record communications. While call recording laws vary by state, your cloud contact center solution should make it easy to abide by any. Other compliance laws include the payment card industry data security standard (PCI-DSS) and the Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), both which require the safeguarding of customer data. The right cloud contact center solution must adhere to a range of data security requirements, which you can learn more about with this checklist we created.

Do you have a “sweet spot” for number of seats?

A cloud-based contact center will provide ideal experiences depending on the number of users on the platform. Some vendors are most focused and comfortable in the 50-100 seats range, while others target larger seat counts up to thousands of agents. These ranges are important to consider as they relate to the size of your organization, your projected growth, and if you have any seasonal fluctuation in use. If you have seasonal highs and lows in call volume, you’ll want a solution that can adjust to those seat-scaling requirements at a reasonable price point (which is where the benefits of a flexible consumption-based pricing model come into play). Even outside of seasonal spikes, you’ll want to ensure you can flexibly scale and shrink as needed (consider the effects of the pandemic, where customer service teams of all types were inundated by calls for months on end).  

Do you have a robust IT team?

Consider the size and proficiency of your technology team. If you don’t have sizable IT help, you’ll want a cloud contact center solution that prioritizes ease-of-installation and maintenance. Or, you might want to consider the benefits of a managed contact center solution. A Managed Service Provider (MSP) handles everything from routine user management and changes to platform monitoring and upkeep to application and business rules management, typically at a lower and more predictable cost while helping your IT team refocus on core business-related activities for your organization.

Do you need omnichannel capabilities?

In short: YES. Your customers shouldn’t have to resort to a phone call because your organization doesn’t offer seamless digital engagement. You have to make it easy for customers to contact your organization across all communication channels (voice, chat, email, SMS, social media, self-service) and devices (mobile phone, tablet, desktop) without confusion or complexity. Your cloud contact center solution should be designed to enhance customer loyalty by creating easy, fully integrated interactions across every channel and device.  

What kind of app integrations would suit you?

Your cloud contact center solution must seamlessly integrate with your current CRM, ERP, and other systems. Integrating with your CRM, for instance, will help your employees better serve customers by providing an “at a glance” view of a contact when an incoming call is initiated, seamlessly log voice and digital interactions, automatically add notes and update customer history into the CRM, and more.  

You’ll also want to consider the value of integrating communication application programming interfaces (APIs) via Communication Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS). CPaaS is a cloud contact center amplifier, enabling you to easily develop custom apps that take customer experience to exciting new levels. Some of today’s leading cloud contact center vendors also offer seamless CPaaS solutions. If you’re not ready for CPaaS right now, chances are you’ll want to be in the future (by 2023, Gartner predicts that 90% of global enterprises will leverage API-enabled CPaaS offerings to enhance their digital competitiveness – up from 20% in 2020).

Your Company’s Roadmap to the Cloud

Not sure where to start with vendors? Servion is an end-to-end, consultative technology specialist with certification across a wide range of cloud contact center platforms or applications including Cisco, Amazon Connect, Genesys, Five9, Twilio, NICE InContact, Verint and more. Our extensive expertise in integrating leading platforms and applications with any cloud delivery model (public, private, hybrid, on-premise), 20+ years of application development practice, global delivery and support capabilities, and compliance expertise (PCI-DSS and HIPAA) enable us to offer a personalized, vendor-agnostic approach to adopting the perfect cloud contact center solution for your organization. See for yourself with a free consulting session with our contact center experts.

The post How to adopt the right Cloud Contact Center Solution for your business appeared first on Servion Blog.

Before we get into the need for managed services for the contact center, let’s look at the changes research suggests we’ll see over the next five years due to the disruption of 2020:

• Permanency of remote work: By April 2020, 66% of knowledge workers were working from home – an increase from 27% pre-pandemic – with many wishing to continue remote work. One year later, management is warming up to the idea of long-term remote work for the undeniable cost and productivity benefits it brings. This is signaling a shift towards cloud-based contact center tools that create meaningful experiences for employees regardless of location: enabling seamless access to, and collaboration with, experts across the organization, a more modernized and intuitive agent desktop, and the implementation of AI and automation solutions like conversational AI and agent assist.
• Shift to cloud-first networking: Organizations rushed their move to cloud contact center solutions as a result of COVID-19. Now with thousands of agents working from home, accessing data and using bandwidth-intensive collaboration applications including video conferencing, management must confidently address potential cloud networking and security challenges while gaining deeper visibility into network performance.
• Communications Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS): By 2023, Gartner predicts that 90% of global enterprises will leverage API-enabled CPaaS offerings to enhance their digital competitiveness – up from 20% in 2020. CPaaS is the driving force behind organizations that are challenging the norm and finding unique new ways to delight customers.
• Customer-led self-service automation: Leading firms like Gartner agree that the future of self-service is customer-led automation. Like so much else, this has only been accelerated by COVID-19. Research from KPMG found that the number of companies investigating automated self-service technologies increased by 15% since February 2020 when the pandemic first hit. By 2025, customer-led self-service automation solutions such as conversational AI, intelligent knowledge databases, and self-authentication via voice biometrics will be the norm.

How do you plan to manage and maintain all of this in-house?

There are a lot of changes expected for the contact center in the years to come. Even if your internal team can manage all of your organization’s strategic contact center planning and infrastructure initiatives, the cost and time savings of a managed service provider (MSP) make the decision a no-brainer.

MSPs help you stay flexible when it comes to resources and can accommodate quick changes that an in-house team may not respond to efficiently. An MSP handles everything from routine user management and changes to platform monitoring and upkeep to application and business rules management, typically at a lower and more predictable cost while helping your internal IT team refocus on core business-related activities for your organization.

As an end-to-end technology specialist, Servion’s managed services go beyond traditional support. We help our customers architect and implement contact center solutions to deliver on the future of customer experience – using the best available technologies while maximizing their existing investments – and then manage those solutions for them, helping them focus on innovation and future ways to transform. From reactive break-fix services to proactive and predictive analytics, we offer a complete suite of 24×7 managed services – on-premises and in the cloud.

Learn more about managed contact center services from Servion.

The post COVID-led disruption is driving explosive growth in Managed Services for the contact center. Here’s what to consider. appeared first on Servion Blog.

Two solutions are getting a lot of attention in the market: Amazon Web Services Contact Center Intelligence (AWS CCI) and Google Contact Center Artificial Intelligence (Google CCAI). Here’s what you should know.

Benefits and Features of Amazon Web Services Contact Center Intelligence (AWS CCI)

Greater employee and customer satisfaction, reduced costs with Amazon Transcribe and Comprehend: In AWS CCI is Amazon Comprehend. This solution analyzes call interactions in real-time to provide agents with contextual suggestions for resolving customer issues. Using Amazon Transcribe and natural language processing (NLP), the technology detects the caller’s sentiment, identifies keywords and phrases, and then passes that data to Amazon Kendra, which provides relevant suggestions to the agent. In a scenario in which an agent deals with a customer who has increasing frustration, this intelligence prompts the agent with helpful responses to diffuse the situation and maintain satisfaction.

Increased customer satisfaction with Amazon Lex, Polly, and Kendra: With the combination of these three technologies, customers can enjoy seamless self-service powered by a dynamic FAQ bot. Kendra provides the best answer suited to the specific inquiry and continually improves as queries come in. Customers get their results fast and efficiently while agents are free to handle more urgent or pressing issues.

Better quality management with Amazon Transcribe and Comprehend: A powerful combination of these technologies provides deep quality management insights that enable managers to analyze customer-agent interactions, identify areas for improvement, and make examples of high-performing agents. Managers can create a feedback loop that relays data back to agents to help them change their practices based on the new information. Behind the scenes, automatic speech recognition (ASR) generates transcripts that NLP analyzes to provide managers with better snapshots of customer interactions.

Benefits and Features of Google Contact Center Artificial Intelligence (Google CCAI)

Relationship-driven experiences with Dialogflow CX: Dialogflow CX allows contact centers to build virtual agents that provide personalized support, immediate service, and rapid resolution. These 24×7 virtual agents can seamlessly switch conversation topics, handle nuanced questions, save on operational costs, and free up live agents to handle more complex, time-consuming, and stimulating interactions. These virtual agents also continually improve through machine learning, meaning what was once a transactional experience becomes a relationship-based journey with your brand.

Improved agent performance with Agent Assist: With virtual agents on deck to handle high volumes of customer interactions, human agents are free to take on more challenging service issues. Agent Assist empowers service representatives with continuous support during calls and chats, including real-time information on the customer’s intent and step-by-step guidance to help them resolve tricky problems. With a real-time digital assistant, agents receive recommended, personalized responses that support them to meet higher customer experience standards.

Shared Benefit: Increased Operational Efficiency with Natural Language Processing

Both AWS CCI and Google CCAI rely on NLP. NLP identifies customer call drivers and sentiment to help managers better analyze interactions, improving call outcomes and overall efficiency. This AI-powered solution delivers tangible results for contact centers by improving call deflection rates, spurring shorter call handling times, and reducing agent training costs. Contact centers will realize higher CSAT scores, and managers can make a prized example of high-performing customer interactions to demonstrate to agents what goes into a most successful call.

Easily Integrate AI Into Your Contact Center

Servion is an end-to-end, holistic technology partner connecting enterprises with AWS CCI and Google CCAI. We have worked with hundreds of businesses (now more than ever with the disruption of COVID-19) on what elements of intelligent contact center technology best suit their organization’s specific needs, handling everything from solution design to deployment to ongoing management.

No matter where your contact center currently stands, we can develop a personalized blueprint for your organization to enable a more intelligent, responsive, AI-powered contact center that creates better customer and agent experiences. Connect with our contact center specialists to learn more about enabling your contact center with AI from AWS or Google.

The post AI-enabling Your Contact Center is Inevitable. Here Are Two Options from Amazon and Google appeared first on Servion Blog.

PeopleFirst is a well-known organization in the industry that every year recognizes the professionals and companies who show excellence in different HR practices and stretch the boundaries of people strategy.

COVID-19 crisis challenged the HR teams and presented an opportunity to come up with tailored approaches to improve employee engagement. Servion has been focused on its employee’s safety, stability, and security ever since COVID-19 and has adopted a more sophisticated approach for employee well-being. Servion’s digital employee engagement initiatives, rewards and recognition framework, and career development framework helped emerge as the winner.

Prakash Arunachalam, CDO & CHRO at Servion, said, “Servion has always been an employee-friendly organization, and we wanted to ensure that we continue to improve communication, maintain a motivated and productive workforce even through this difficult phase. We are truly honored to be recognized by PeopleFirst.”

About Servion

For more than 25 years, Servion has been trusted by customer-centric brands for architecting, implementing, and managing Contact Centers and Customer Experience (CX) solutions. Servion delivers complete solutions for businesses to innovate in providing digital experiences using the best available technologies while maximizing their existing investments. Our 1,000 CX professionals apply their passion and deep domain expertise to the entire build-run-optimize solution lifecycle. Servion has helped 600 enterprises worldwide deliver great experiences to their customers, partners, and employees. For more information, visit https://www.servion.com.

The post Servion wins the prestigious PeopleFirst HR Excellence Awards, 2020 appeared first on Servion Blog.

The cloud enables contact centers to be more flexible and agile – two qualities essential for weathering economic storms – while better positioning businesses in an era of constantly changing and increasingly competitive customer experience. But there are three technological components that keep many companies from harnessing the full power of a cloud contact center: data, security, and connectivity.

Here’s what organizations are struggling with most, and what they can do to improve:

Improve Data Analytics with Better Integration and Actionable Insights

Enterprises that are looking to compete effectively require a comprehensive contact center approach that leverages in-depth operations, customer, and employee analytics, but most suffer from the lack of appropriate resources required to do so. At best, reporting tools masquerade as analytics, describing just the current state of the contact center with no actionable insights. Making the move to a viable analytics solution for the contact center isn’t easy, either. Most are expensive, resource intensive, and not built keeping in mind the specific needs of the contact center.

The contact center should act as a deep well of data that seamlessly unifies everything from operational analytics to real-time dashboards to best action and customer effort score analysis. Organizations need to introduce potent, domain-specific analytics tools to accelerate key business workflows and drive better customer and employee experience. An end-to-end technology partner with an advanced level of analytics and workforce engagement capabilities can take you where you need to go and keep you ahead of the curve.

Enhance Workforce Management and Customer Data Protection – Now and After COVID-19

Security is no longer a major concern with the cloud, even in a new world of working from home. An AI-powered Work from Home (WFH) Monitoring solution gives supervisors peace of mind that their agents are working in secure, compliant remote environments just as they would at an in-office contact center. They can validate their agents’ identity to ensure the right person is accessing sensitive customer data, as well as automatically detect the presence of others (like a live-in family member) and blur the agent’s desktop or mobile screen if sensitive information becomes publicly viewable. Supervisors can also analyze desktop and mobile browser activity to ensure agents are staying productive while working remotely across different devices. The solution also increases operational efficiency and control by providing supervisors with customizable reports and real-time alerts and notifications. In today’s tech-advanced world with a bounty of solutions, concerns over workforce management and customer data protection shouldn’t hold the contact center back from its full potential.

Attack Networking and Connectivity Challenges with a Carrier and Network Agnostic Solution

There’s a lot to consider regarding networking and connectivity, from costs and uptime to security and reliability. Securely re-routing services like 800 numbers and data from screen pops from the enterprise to a new cloud contact center without disrupting continuity or quality of service can be difficult. There’s also the challenge of system integrations. Organizations have to ensure they have the right setup and links to integrate a new cloud solution with their existing on-premises solutions. There’s also the need to configure instances from different availability zones or regions. This is where an end-to-end technology partner shines. At Servion, we offer carrier neutral, network agnostic solutions that are geo-redundant with high-availability, multi-carrier support/failover, enterprise-grade scalability, and end-to-end encryption – all with flexible deployment options depending on your business’ specific needs. This is how we have helped some of the world’s largest healthcare, chemical, and financial organizations rapidly set up a cloud contact center and remote work strategy in response to COVID-19.

Complete Your Cloud Journey With the Right Partner

When the pandemic hit, Servion helped many enterprises seamlessly and cost-effectively move their contact centers to a secure, connected, cloud-based environment. As a vendor-agnostic, end-to-end technology partner, we have one of the world’s most expansive ecosystems of cloud partners including Cisco, Amazon Connect, Avaya, NICE, Verint and more. We’re here to help you navigate the final leg of your cloud contact center journey. Connect with our Contact Center and CX Specialists today.

The post Not Getting All You Want From Your Cloud Contact Center? Take These Steps appeared first on Servion Blog.

In a July 2020 study conducted by the Harvard Business Review, about 40% of managers expressed low self-confidence in their ability to supervise workers remotely. A new “work from home” economy requires a fresh approach to Workforce Management built on Work From Home (WFH) Monitoring and reinforced customer data protection. Here’s what enterprises need to consider:

Employee face detection: An AI-powered WFH Monitoring solution allows managers to detect an employee’s face on camera – even with poor lighting or angling – and validate the person’s identity through cross-matching with internally stored photos. This can be done on any device – desktop or mobile – to ensure the right person is accessing enterprise systems and confidential data. If the cross-matching proves inaccurate, an automatic notification will be sent to the manager in order to take immediate action.

Mobile phone/camera detection with automatic blurring effect: In highly regulated industries like government, healthcare, and financial services, the need to protect confidential information from outside sources is vital. An AI-powered WFH Monitoring solution can automatically detect another person’s presence (ex: a live-in family member) and temporarily blur the agent’s screen to keep sensitive data protected. This automatic blurring effect is available for both desktop and mobile devices. The solution can also detect if an agent is holding a mobile phone or camera while working at their desktop, and blurring prevents from taking a photo of the screen.

Employee activity tracking and monitoring: It may look like agents are present and available, but how do you know they haven’t been on social media or playing games on their mobile phone? More importantly, how do you know they are not using non-secured apps that could compromise customer data? Small breaks are necessary for mental health – now more than ever during a global pandemic – but managers need to ensure agents are performing work-related activities and avoiding non-secure apps. An AI-powered WFH Monitoring solution analyzes desktop and mobile browser activity to see what sites are being visited during work hours and how much time is being spent on them. Collected information is available through a simple unified management dashboard by team and individual view.

Ability to track login-hours, breaks, absenteeism, and idle-time: Easily keep track of when agents log in, log out, go on scheduled breaks, and go idle. View information through the unified management dashboard to identify patterns and improve at-home productivity.

Role-based access to monitor team’s performance: Ensure supervisors, managers, and IT admins have access to the right people and/or information via the unified management dashboard (ex: a supervisor being granted access to view the desktop activity and performance of 20 agents in a specific region vs. an IT admin being granted access to view activity across the entire organization for network performance, application analytics, etc.).

Customizable reports that can be sent in scheduled frequencies: Create customized reports to track time spent on work for specific teams, geographic locations, and more. Dig deeper into individual agent performance and productivity to maximize at-home output and customer data protection. Customize reports to be sent on a daily, weekly or monthly basis right to your email inbox. 

In a new world of at-home work, WFH Monitoring helps organizations adapt with ease and confidence by providing better visibility of and analysis into the remote employee experience:

• Improve employee efficiency with actionable productivity insights
• Enhance data security with advanced face detection, device detection and desktop monitoring
• Increase operational efficiency and control by providing supervisors with customizable reports and real-time alerts and notifications
• Create better collaboration by seamlessly integrating the WFH Monitoring solution with existing contact center and collaboration tools

Learn more about ServSecure, Servion’s AI-powered WFH Monitoring solution.

The post The world is now working from home. What does that mean for workforce management and customer data protection? appeared first on Servion Blog.

Studies unanimously show that most customers want self-service technology and prefer self-service over human interaction. Arguably, COVID-19 has accelerated the need for automated self-service as strained customer service staff deal with a barrage of complex and time-consuming inquiries. According to KPMG, the number of companies investigating automated self-service technologies has increased by 15% since February 2020 when the crisis first hit.

Top applications of automated self-service (and the business case for each)

Conversational AI: Companies can automate a large portion of incoming chat and/or voice traffic by using an AI-powered virtual assistant that can intelligently interact with customers, helping with any number of inquiries that otherwise take up valuable employee time. These virtual assistants are no different than voice-enabled smart devices like Amazon Echo and Google Home, which over 25% of U.S. consumers now own. Besides the clear benefit of increased productivity, companies can generate insights from key words or phrases to identify new revenue and retention opportunities (i.e. the past 300 callers who used the phrase “XYZ” were looking for ABC) as well as to uncover customer intent and sentiment. Overall, the conversational AI market is set to experience a CAGR of 30% between 2019 and 2024.

Intelligent knowledge database: A recent study from Coleman Parkes found that 91% of customers would use an intelligent self-service option like a knowledge base if it were available to them. Knowledge base articles can include “how to” information (i.e. how do I make a balance transfer?), educational information (i.e. what is workforce optimization?) and company-specific information (i.e. what is XX’s return policy?). These articles can be programmed to automatically appear in the context of the service journey. For example, if a customer is on a bank’s landing page for credit cards, a screen pop can automatically appear in real-time with knowledge base articles on how to apply for a credit card and other relevant information.

Self-authentication via voice biometrics: By recognizing a voiceprint, the system saves time that the customer would normally spend answering verification questions while improving business efficiency and costs. It’s estimated that organizations can save up to $10 per call when voice biometrics is applied. For a large, global organization where requests for support are high, this can translate into substantial savings while maintaining compliance, security, and customer satisfaction.

How companies are succeeding with automated self-service

There’s a lot to consider with automated self-service. It isn’t something you can “set and forget,” and not all self-service automation tools are created equal. You also have to carefully think about what types of activities you can (or more importantly, should) transition over to self-service. There’s also a great deal of data management and consolidation that goes into making automated self-service work seamlessly (the more massive data sets get and the more that’s needed to understand them, the more difficult it becomes to organize and manage everything).

A strategic technology partner is crucial for navigating the complexities of automated self-service. Servion offers an end-to-end, personalized, vendor-agnostic approach that helps companies adopt automated self-service in a way that makes sense for them. Here’s how our customers are benefiting:

• A leading international bank in the UAE turned to Servion to design and develop an intelligent self-service application that includes promotional messages, multi-lingual support, caller identification, card activation and more. The automated self-service system has measurably reduced wait times, improved communications, and reduced time-consuming transfers and re-routes.
• Servion helped North America’s leading telecom service provider reduce operational costs and improve service experiences with an AI-powered IVR. The solution can determine wait times in the call queue, predict customer intent based on information gathered through questions in the IVR, and intelligently authenticate customers.
• A leading bank in Malaysia used Servion to start automating collections, card operations, and fulfillment – increasing throughput by 400%, reducing FTE by 69%, reducing processing time by 34%, and saving up to $600k annually.

Automated self-service is becoming a permanent fixture in today’s new reality of customer experience. Now’s the time to get on board, and a strategic technology partner is your best bet for doing so. Servion is here to help. Talk to our automation specialists today.

The post How automated self-service improves customer and business outcomes – Insights and examples appeared first on Servion Blog.

The global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has changed all our assumptions. It has shown us how rapidly disruption can alter our lives, livelihood, and businesses. It demonstrated the actual value of cloud solutions in a global crisis and why business continuity planning is critical.

Amidst severe disruptions and challenges instigated by lockdowns, fear, and social distancing protocols, companies made significant progress in the adoption of cloud infrastructure and hosted services in the past several weeks to support their business applications, workflows, and processes, optimized for secure and reliable remote operations.

This paradigm shift has triggered a massive demand for smarter, quicker, and cheaper cloud-based communication solutions like CPaaS, video conferencing, VPNs, and cloud telephony for calling meetings, and collaboration. And it is not just large organizations and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) going after cloud transformation today. Government organizations are increasingly adopting cloud telephony services as part of their communication and collaboration strategy due to the cost-efficiency, agility, and flexibility of the cloud telephony to integrate with other essential business applications and processes.

According to a market report by Transparency Market Research, the global cloud telephony services market is expected to reach a value of US$ 41,768.3 million by 2026 on account of cost reductions compared to traditional on-premise telephone systems.

The market is projected to expand at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 17.2% during the next six years. Multiple benefits offered by cloud telephony are some of the factors that have led to the fast adoption of cloud telephony services by businesses during COVID-19.

Cloud telephony fundamentally replaces conventional on-premise hardware and phone systems like EPBAX, PBX, etc. It enables the users to receive and make voice and video calls over the internet and offers a perfect solution for businesses to stay alive and connected with their customers during these critical times. It requires no additional software, installation, or maintenance.

For contact centers, cloud telephony plays a pivotal role in delivering essential services like health care. Unlike traditional communications systems that help meet certain requirements, cloud telephony helps healthcare providers cultivate strong relationships with patients through swift communications that enable them to seek and receive as much medical attention from medical professionals as they expect.

Cloud-based phone systems have an advanced system for recovery and business continuity in the face of an outage. Because it is hosted virtually, there is no need to worry about the types of disastrous scenarios used to disrupt on-premise or landline phone services. The cloud-based systems are entirely unaffected even if a phone line is cut. If Internet service goes down, phone calls can be re-routed to backup cell phone numbers or other business offices.

An ideal solution for multi-location businesses and workers on the go, cloud telephony can be moved to any location with a working Internet connection. This allows us to manage communications remotely during a crisis, like COVID-19. The managers and supervisors can easily connect with their teams through voice calls, video calls, and instant messaging.

With cloud telephony, supported by features like instant call recording, integration with CRM, emails, and other business apps, many manual processes can be automated, making it easy to communicate crucial information to patients. Besides, cloud telephony is highly scalable, flexible, and customizable for businesses of all sizes, from a single small-office up to an international 100+ seat contact center. Features and services can scale up or down more efficiently and economically at any given time without the headaches of changing or merging lanes. It can handle dozens of calls simultaneously and automatically route queries to the right agents as needed.

Because the service is delivered over the web, cloud telephony can be integrated into your employees’ mobile phone with a business phone number or the organization’s current telephone system to improve or transform the current telephony capabilities, using IP handsets.

Would you like to learn how Servion can help you embrace a cloud contact center solution for your remote working team during COVID-19? Speak with one of our experts today to learn more.

The post Adapting cloud telephony solutions during COVID-19 appeared first on Servion Blog.

• Greater agility: There are high expectations for brand engagement today, and customers expect companies to meet their pace of innovation. Cloud solutions enable faster innovation to stay ahead of dynamic and constantly changing needs.
• Built-in disaster recovery: Redundancy and failover are native features of cloud architectures, and CCaaS solutions provide a great degree of resilience.
• Flexible capacity management: Cloud solutions can quickly scale up and down to handle the ebb and flow of customer interaction volumes, only requiring enterprises to pay for the resources they use.
• Intelligent, automated self-service: It’s expected that 20% of all service interactions will be handled by virtual assistants two years from now. Applications of automated self-service like speech biometrics, conversational AI, and robotic process automation (RPA) are crucial to the future of service. Most of this innovation happens in the cloud.
• Data consolidation and management: An effective, enterprise-wide data management strategy is critical for leveraging the kind of customer intelligence needed to deliver incredible service experiences (55% of recently surveyed IT leaders and executives strongly agree that data modernization is a key component of, or a reason for, their company’s shift to the cloud).

Looking at the changes happening with customer experience and how organizations are shaping themselves, it’s clear that CCaaS is critical. Gartner predicts that CCaaS will be the preferred model of adoption for 50% of all contact centers by 2022 (an increase from 10% in 2019) and Forbes reports that 66% of global contact centers that are not using cloud today are planning to accelerate their move to CCaaS as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

How a Strategic Technology Partner Can Drive Your CCaaS Strategy

Moving your on-premises contact center to the cloud is one of the most significant technology shifts your business will face, which is why you need an experienced partner that understands your current and future state. The right partner will ensure you get to the cloud on time, under budget (it’s estimated the average organization goes over budget by 23% and wastes around 30% of cloud spend) and with the results you expected.

Servion offers an end-to-end, personalized, vendor-agnostic approach that helps companies seamlessly navigate cloud migration to successfully adopt CCaaS. Our global delivery team works backwards to design the right CCaaS solution for a client’s exact needs, then finding the best provider to meet the requirements of the design to ensure successful implementation. Here’s how our customers are benefiting:

• We recently helped one of the largest chemical companies in the world set up a cloud contact center and implement an efficient remote work strategy, allowing agents to stay safe at their homes and continue to address spikes in call volume.
• A leading call recording provider has been able to re-engineer its contact center with a more modern, responsive UI for better customer experience and workflow automation, reducing supervisors’ workloads by 50%.
• India’s second largest bank turned to Servion to create a centralized platform for contact center management and reporting, improving their automated outbound calling strategy and supporting more dynamic and effective campaign management.

The move to CCaaS can quickly go if not carefully organized and managed. We take pride in being a trusted advisor for businesses worldwide making this journey, helping them get more value from their contact center, drive true digital transformation, and bridge the gaps between their customers and the services they want. See for yourself with a free CCaaS consulting session.

The post Most businesses are accelerating their move to CCaaS. Here is how to plot yours appeared first on Servion Blog.

More and more consumers turn towards virtual assistants to have natural, conversational interactions when they engage with businesses to obtain service. This has wholly redefined the role of virtual assistants in cementing a relationship between brands and their customers and the way consumers interact.

Thanks to their capabilities to use natural language processing (NLP), learning techniques, and interactive capabilities to support users in finding the right information, appropriate service information, or products. Virtual assistants are gaining prominence steadily as the go-to mode of rapid-fire and purposeful interactions. As a result, 51% of customers say that a conversational interface makes it easier to get things done when engaging with a company — no matter whether they use an IVR, website, or mobile app.

Forward-looking companies respond to this demand by implementing conversational virtual assistants: digital personas that deliver a quicker, seamless, and personalized customer experience via a human-like conversational interface that supports voice recognition, contextual understanding, and hand-free interaction.

Conversational virtual assistants have different names in the industry. They are often called conversational agents, virtual personal assistant, personal digital assistant, voice-enabled assistant, and even voice-activated personal assistants. But their goal is the same. Instead of forcing customers to browse through long lists of search results or navigate complicated menus and screens, virtual assistants use NLU to engage users via voice or textbased interactions and guide them to successful outcomes.

Providing personalized service that can emulate a best live agent, a conversational virtual assistant serves as an all-knowing, brand ambassador, a reassuring voice of customer service for an organization. It improves the effectiveness of self-service interactions and reduces inbound call volume to the contact center for bottom-line impact.

Here are some significant benefits of employing Virtual Assistants for improving customer experience.

Conversational interfaces

Virtual Assistants enable users to have conversations that feel natural or human-like. They also provide a multimodal interface that makes interacting with mobile apps easier, more productive, and enjoyable. Users can opt for the interaction they prefer and move freely between conversational speech, touch, or type within a given task or transaction, instead of navigating through multiple menus and screens to get what they need from the app.

Real-time interactions 24/7

A brand’s website is often the first place people go to find information or get answers. A website is available 24/7 and accessible from any PC, tablet, or smartphone. However, a website does not always make it easy to get immediate, accurate answers to questions. Depending on how users phrase their queries, a website could extract numerous results, forcing them to shift through pages of potential results for answers. On the other hand, virtual assistants offer a much faster and higher resolution rate and a more personalized experience. A customer can chat or talk to a virtual assistant and get straightforward responses quickly. It’s a time saver for customers who don’t have the patience to wait for the call to get in touch with an agent.

Self-service

Virtual Assistants play a big role in strengthening self-service. Most customers prefer to seek answers to the questions they have, themselves, and on the go. Virtual Assistants provide customers with the support needed to resolve issues whenever and wherever they want, increasing customer satisfaction. Virtual assistants can answer efficiently or point to the next level to get their answers. In banking, customers can skip the otherwise tedious transaction process and use an interface familiar to them. Virtual agents can also allow customers to instantly carry out transactions in the conversational style, similar to text messaging or talking on the phone.

Real-time personalization

With the help of Natural Language Processing (NLP) to understand how a text (Chatbot) or voice (VA) – a natural language – has to be interpreted and processed, virtual Assistants can identify, quantify and extract emotions across channels to understand the social sentiment of their brand, product or service. This enables the brands to offer customers personalized products, services, offers, recommendations, and content based on the customer context and needs to offer a differentiated experience.

Predictive sales leads

AI’s impressive data-processing and analysis capabilities enable conversational virtual assistants to extract keywords from interactions to score users’ likelihood of converting, allowing the sales to prioritize their leads. It offers the agents insight into customers’ feelings, preferences, and irritations, design tailored products, offerings, and promotions, proactively contact the customers, and inform the next best step recommendations.

Easier Escalation Process

Usually, when customers are unhappy with IVR or a real agent, filling a form or navigating out of their current screen will be the next level of escalation. Suppose a virtual assistant, on the other hand, cannot resolve simple customer queries. In that case, it can simply escalate the query to a live agent if appropriate, even without explicit prompting by the customer. All of this happens in the same window.

Cost-saving and revenue

Brands can expect 15-70% cost reduction opportunities with the implementation of Conversational AI-enabled channels. They can automate basic routine customer interactions to be performed by the virtual agent, freeing up employee capacity to perform more high-value and meaningful work. In other cases, they can divert the conversations that customers have on expensive channels and reduce the number of calls to contact centers. This helps the agents to optimize their productivity.

As consumer demand for conversational interfaces continues to grow, businesses need to respond with innovative self-service solutions — or risk that they will be left behind. Conversational virtual assistants can transform self-service interactions to deliver a fast, effortless, and personalized brand experience to customers that will keep them coming back for more. Not only do they reduce the costs of contact centers by improving the rates of automation, but they can also drive revenue by increasing conversions, upselling, and cross-selling. Conversational virtual assistants are a natural choice for businesses seeking to differentiate themselves through exceptional self-service, enabling quick, easy interactions with an intelligent, human touch.

Want to know how Servion can help you redefine the customer experience with conversational virtual assistants? Talk to our CX specialist today.

The post Conversational virtual assistants – How to enable superior mobile experience appeared first on Servion Blog.

Without remote functionalities necessary for their agents and supervisors to urgently shift to a new work-from-home model and maintain business continuity during lockdowns, they struggled to put together all essential services to support the customers.

The result? Unable to react to a significant and sudden increase in call volumes, they eventually stumbled upon an inevitable consequence of losing customers and, quite possibly, their business and reputation.

This comes as no surprise as more and more businesses are discovering that the cloud contact center is the only future-proof solution that can help them keep pace with today’s changing business landscape.

Major companies have already forsaken the old, in-house legacy systems, realizing that cloud solutions can not only offer the affordability, reliability, efficiency, scalability, and multichannel capabilities they want but feature the agility and flexibility needed for any unprecedented circumstances to keep up with the shifting market and customer behaviors.

As we know, cloud contact center solutions come with many benefits that can drive digital disruption in customer experience (CX). They are:

Quick Deployment: For companies using premise-based contact center systems, it can take weeks—or even months—to deploy new sales tools and capabilities. With a cloud contact center, you can deploy new tools on the fly. No requirements for new hardware, just a few clicks, and the deployment time only takes a matter of hours.

Easy Scalability: Unlike legacy solutions that require voice modules, additional software licenses, and other add-ons, cloud solutions allow you to instantly scale up or down, depending on the workforce or seasonal spikes.

Better integrations: Cloud enables deployment of ready-to-go IP contact centers and next-generation applications such as computer-telephony integration (CTI). In addition to standard Contact Center applications, it is also easy to integrate other types of applications such as skills-based routing, call recording, interactive voice response (IVR), workforce management (WFM), voicemail (VM), screen pop (CRM integrated) and soft client application.

Reliability and high availability: There was a misconception that premise-based contact center systems could offer greater reliability than hosted solutions. But COVID-19 has proved otherwise. Today’s enterprise-class cloud contact center solutions provide the highest availability, reliability, and disaster recovery.

Business Continuity: The Cloud is immune to any disasters that on-premise contact centers can suffer from. All the customer data is safe, and agents can work remotely. This is also why businesses are opting for Cloud as it provides better effective DR (Disaster Recovery) and BC (Business Continuity) measures.

Reduced costs: Cloud Contact Center costs less than in-house contact centers since it allows you to downsize unused cloud resources and free up storage & network and plan the cloud inventory to the bare minimum, which is required to run the business.

However, even with all the benefits, the major concern about adopting cloud-based solutions is security. A secure cloud computing environment depends on several security solutions working harmoniously together. Therefore, in the next sections, we will discuss some of the best practices to ensure Cloud Contact Center Security.

• Choose Cloud Contact Centers that are designed for maximum security and updated.
• Ensure that contact center staff are using the latest technology to engage with customers and that all staff is in the know about both security and technology updates.
• Ensure agents adhere to security guidelines while engaging with customers, thereby protecting the customer details at all times
• Follow a solid security strategy that involves a multiple-authentication process, access management, heavy encryption along with Data Loss Prevention (DLP) software to achieve security for stationary data.
• Automate security configurations for third-party tools for protection and compliance
• Encrypt all communication between cloud-hosted apps and thin clients.
• Set up role-based logins for agents and managers to ensure the right data.
• Create individual credentials for each user and restrict access only to the concerned groups with Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
• Set up a secure firewall between the VoIP server and the outside network.
• Limited control for access and auditing process, along with the responsibility to control it, should belong to the Cloud Contact Center.
• Automated periodic change of keys can help to mitigate risks with the login process.
• A multi-tiered architecture and network segmentation along with a virtual firewall to allow or block communication packages
• With integrated Security Incident and Event Management (SIEM) tools, rigorous tests should be carried out to remove vulnerabilities to ensure Cloud Contact Center Security.

Cloud Contact Center is obviously a much safer option than on-premise Contact Centers when governed with regulatory compliance and high-security protocols. By partnering with the right service provider like Servion, businesses can improve customer satisfaction and modernize the customer experience offering.

Do you want to know how Servion can help you put your customer experience at the forefront of crisis mitigation? Talk to our CX specialist today.

The post Best practices to improve cloud contact center security appeared first on Servion Blog.

The challenges in these uncertain times are unprecedented. First, the companies must understand and anticipate which customer trends and patterns will endure over the longer term. Second, they should adapt and elevate the customer experience in the next normal, replacing or complementing their traditional customer service. Third, companies must build safety into their customer experience strategy in the near term, providing contactless solutions that matter most to customers.

CX technologies have been around for two decades. But if you still struggle to meet the customer needs, it is due to six reasons:

• You have under-invested in digital transformation to address the core business needs and continued to operate legacy systems on dated technology.
• CX leaders were too focused on short-term gains rather than building long-term foundations, supported by core infrastructure and key processes.
• Silo’ed legacy infrastructure and a lack of cohesive customer data across the organization
• Misalignments and additional complexities due to lack of integration between communications channels in a multi-channel environment.

It seems that the world will never go back to the way it was. COVID-19 has completely altered customer experience (CX) and the customers have largely endured the new reality — out of stocks, delayed deliveries, long wait times, short staffed, and adjusted hours, knowing full-well the forces that companies face. But for companies, it is their turn to think ahead about how they will serve customers and ensure the transition to newly changed customer behavior.

At this point, CX is not only about creating a seamless customer experience through different channels, but also the ability to integrate services and understand their existing or potential consumer in order to effectively deal with this challenge. Enterprises need to clearly know who their customers are, their preferences and prejudices, habits and patterns to ensure CX solution is mapped to their needs.

What do successful companies do right about their CX?

1. A customer-first approach

All unprecedented situations call for organizations to understand evolving consumer and community needs, and react to them – first and fast. Companies, focusing on customer experience with a customer-first approach during uncertain times, have a better opportunity to nurture and likely to retain them in the long-term, when the crisis ends. This means both reassuring their customers and also adapting quickly to provide the right products, services and solutions where appropriate.

2. Moving to the Cloud

To accommodate the growing customer expectations and enable 24/7 seamless customer support, companies should standardize and unify customer communications across multiple communication channels. As the remote work culture kicks in with the spread of the virus, there is simply no way that organizations with traditional on-premise facilities can provide an ‘always-on’ customer service that consumers are increasingly coming to expect. To deliver this, they should migrate their operations completely to the Cloud, boosting the functionalities of the organization as a whole.

3. Enabling remote work

Once the organization has implemented Cloud technology to ensure business continuity and allow rapid expansion of organizations’ capacity to handle such surge in demand, it should enable employees with the tools and necessary devices to do their jobs remotely, ensuring that they can communicate and collaborate with customers as well as colleagues.

Communication and collaboration capabilities such as phone, video, chat, email, collaborative workspaces, desktop sharing, and directory services enable employees to find and share information they need to do their jobs. It is also critical to implement workforce optimization (WFO), analytics and quality assurance capabilities to monitor and gauge employee performance for tracking how their activities influence the ability to attain desired results across key performance indicators (KPIs).

4. Bridging the data silos

Successful organizations understand the need to break down silos between different functions that may have developed over time and generate a culture of customer-centricity group wide. Moving to a new customer experience paradigm, and providing cohesive experiences, means creating a single view of the customer across the organization.

5. Integrate consolidated CRM systems

Successful organizations consolidate CRMs and integrate with social media. They integrate various disparate CRM systems into a single solution that can underpin the new customer experience paradigm. The key to addressing this need for integration is the adoption of open, standards-based technology solutions, which are more customizable, cost effective and proven in mature markets.

6. Viewing the enterprise as one

A 360-degree view of consumers combined with the products and services which are being consumed. This enables business decision makers to have a deeper understanding the usage of the services and consumer experience while utilizing the products. They are also able to use this information to optimize marketing engines for better campaigns.

However, organizations are faced not only with technology challenges but business process issues as well. It is essential that organizations move up the maturity model and integrate business processes with IT for effective flow of data. This, in turn, is critical for the single customer view required by analytical solutions. Complete insight is essential to effective analytics and to ensure that the data value chain supports the business.

7. Using data that they collate

Achieving exceptional customer experiences hinges on advanced analytics capabilities, which are essential to successfully resolve queries and leave consumers feeling impressed. By leveraging effective, real-time customer analytics, organizations can better understand their consumers, their personal buying and behavior patterns, their preferences and more. This then supports the ability to tailor services and experiences towards them and more accurately target consumers. It also empowers more effective customer service and the ability to communicate seamlessly regardless of communication channel. Analytics provides a 360-degree view of the customer across all channels and supports the use of artificial intelligence – with the adoption of self-learning bots that can provide always-on customer service capability to deal with a significant proportion of customer requests.

By leveraging the power of data and insights generated, companies gain a deeper understanding the customer experience, market insights, brand perception, sentiment and segment views. This can be used to improve customer profitability, loyalty, creation of cross-selling and up-selling opportunities, proper product bundling based on market basket analysis, the introduction of targeted campaigns, increases in segment penetration, increased revenues and a lower customer churn.

Many enterprises have heavily invested in the customer service space by now and a matter of concern for them is the utilization of invested assets whilst keeping their business ahead of customer’s expectations. What is important right now amidst a plethora of technologies and new applications that claims to be a panacea for all ills is a solution that calls for a minimal reinvention of the wheel along with modernization that ensures customer delight and loyalty.

Want to know more? Talk to our CX specialty today.

The post Next-gen customer experience (CX) in a post COVID-19 era appeared first on Servion Blog.

For decades, IVR has been the workhorse of customer self-service for enterprises. Compared to other communication channels, these self-service systems cut costs, handle higher call volumes, and provide 24/7 customer service. Unfortunately, they have been a thorn of experience for customers trying to use them over the years, due to customer pain points, namely:

• They overwhelm customers with too many menu options.
• They don’t provide solutions quickly, and pressing touchtone keys for long is annoying for customers.
• The first menu doesn’t have sufficient information or options that customers are looking for.
• They cannot get an agent when they need to.
• Customers often have to repeat their queries to a live agent when the call is transferred.
• Too wordy and takes too long to get the answer.

In today’s fast-paced world, what the new digital-savvy customers are expecting is something simple, intuitive, interactive, and personalized, providing a better self‑service experience. This is why forward-looking companies invest heavily on digitally disruptive technologies like Voice Recognition, AI and Machine learning to build Conversational IVR that enables more personalized and human-like conversations, instead of giving them a maze of options.

Conversational IVR is an intelligent, proactive, personal, and self-learning system that enables callers to have a natural, human-like dialogue with the automated engine using everyday language to quickly find answers and achieve desired results. By using intelligent voice-activated services, it allows callers to quickly access vital information, perform complicated tasks, and even resolve issues within the IVR as if they were speaking to a live agent. A conversational IVR can foresee the customers’ needs and interact with them on a personalized level, similar to a live agent interaction. These human-like interactions balance increasing customer asks by delivering an intuitive service experience.

What does a conversational IVR do?

• It recognizes, understands, and guides customers to the appropriate support.
• It supports natural interactions and delivers accurate and effortless results.
• It remembers the customer and drives interactions throughout the customer experience.
• It understands and anticipates a customer’s unique needs and preferences.
• It gives customers a choice in how to interact and empowers them to help themselves anywhere, anytime.

Ultimately, conversational IVR aims to fix:

• Complex IVR menu structures
• Changing customer expectations
• Ease of use across touchpoints
• Spike in call volumes

Complex IVR menu structures

Say goodbye to complicated IVR menus. With conversational IVR, you can quickly talk your way through the simple menu structure because of its intuitive integration of data. By using speech recognition tools and customer information, the application picks up the preferred language of conversation. This eases the access to conversation further on.

At the onset of the call, customers can be recognized immediately based on the caller ID and other details. This translates into a personalized conversation with questions and answers thrown back and forth between the automated operator and the customer to take them through the IVR effectively and resolve issues faster.

Changing customer expectations

Access to information through multiple channels influence expectations. This is regarded as one reason why enterprises are switching to conversational IVR. Just like you comfortably interact with virtual assistants like Google Now or Siri, the conversational IVR application ensures a smooth and easy conversation with a live operator.

It understands natural and spoken dialogue using Natural Language Understanding (NLU) technology. When combined with intuitive analytics, data integration, and advanced dialog design, it allows enterprises to understand customer language and sentiments. This two-way interactive dialogue is a less structured conversational way of interaction with the end-user.

The same model can be replicated to suit the actions of individual enterprises. And can be tailored to meet the unique goals of enterprises.

Ease of use across touchpoints

As an add-on, conversational IVR allows enterprises to gain deeper insights into what customers do on other channels. As it follows their journey maps, it can help predict the intent behind the call and reduce the time for problem resolution.

For example, if you try to withdraw cash from an ATM but the card is swallowed by the machine. By connecting the channel’s data sources, the enterprise’s automated system could predict the intent of your call by putting two and two together.

Spike in call volumes

If enterprises have a robust self-service system with a conversational IVR, they will manage a maximum number of calls during seasons of spikes, including festival spikes and unpredictable spikes. As an effective way to handle spikes, the automated system can help resolve a third or more calls, by predicting customer intent and quickly informing them when they needed it.

For example, if you have a failure in a Black Friday sale transaction, the intuitive nature of the IVR could help identify the transaction and help to complete the transaction by guiding you through the process.

At the onset of its implementation, the traditional IVR system aimed to lower costs while providing a consistent experience. But as time progressed, those models had to adapt to new age technology by keeping up with the needs of customers. And conversational IVR is one way it can help enterprises bridge the gaps that the traditional model failed to cover.

The post Conversational IVR is the new game-changer appeared first on Servion Blog.

A CTI helps organizations gain a 360-degree view of the customer, personalize each customer-agent interaction, cut down call handling time, boost agent efficiency and performance, and ultimately maximize the customer experience.

A CTI connector primarily acts as a logical network element or a back-to-back user agent (B2BUA) in Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), that remains as a pass-through in the call signaling path to intercept SIP messages for other endpoints and third party capabilities that help organizations use extended call control functionalities. When the CTI connector runs, it checks the use-cti parameter value to determine how the call is mapped.

Perhaps, a CTI connector is a short-term solution for a long-term problem. But, in a rapid digital transformation embarked by enterprises who wish to preserve their investment in telephony equipment, it is an integration of choice for companies to quickly boost the efficiency and productivity from the CTI connection, via newfound automation capabilities, such as click-to-call, and screen pops based on the caller ID of an incoming call and enhanced visibility into agent activities.

Servion is a leading CX specialist and system integrator who can offer “out-of-the-box,” custom-built, inexpensive and easy-to-deploy CTI connectors for enterprises to preserve the status quo maintaining their existing on-premise telephony equipment, and customer management platforms, used by different teams with strict business goals and mandates.

Servion has built several such custom-built and easy-to-deploy CTI connectors for our global clients. We are glad to share three success stories to demonstrate how Servion helped clients overcome the data problem with CTI connectors.

Success Story 1

This is the story of the fifth-largest bank in the US, headquartered in Minnesota with over 74,000 employees, serving millions of customers across the country with a diverse mix of financial services that include consumer and business banking, corporate and commercial banking, payment services and wealth management and investment services. The client improved agent-supervisor engagement with Servion’s WFM Connector, by connecting AVAYA POM and Nice WFM for better workforce management.

Requirement

The bank was looking for an effective connector to integrate the newly updated Avaya Proactive Outreach Manager platform (POM) with its NICE Workforce Engagement Management for efficient staffing and RPA needs. The bank migrated from the traditional Avaya Proactive Contact Solution dialer to the latest POM, who does not directly interface to pass the critical agent/state/call data to Nice WFM. The requirement was to build an interface on AVAYA POM to fetch data and send it to Nice WFM for MIS and workforce predictions.

Solution

With a “Build Once Deploy Many” approach, Servion built a robust, scalable end-to-end connector, that seamlessly ensures the data integration between AVAYA POM and Nice WFM.

The solution included:

• Real-time data integration which enables the connector to capture agent/state/call statistics data from AVAYA POM and sends it to Nice WFM.
• Historical data management: besides the real-time feed of data, the connector can feed the historical data at periodic intervals to Nice WFM as upload files.
• Tools and technologies: The data flow combined cutting-edge tools and techniques including Java, Hibernate, Apache Kafka, AVAYA POM Real-time SDK, Message Queues, MS SQL-Server, XML Stream, and Socket Server.

Business outcomes

With implementing AVAYA POM – Nice WFM connector, the contact center operations in terms of workforce management and customer engagement became more efficient and handy. Servion’s deployment brought about several other operational benefits for the client, including:

• Workforce management and staff forecasting made simple.
• Robust and minimal configurations to fetch the data feed.
• Higher visibility on queues, call status, workload, and agent performance for supervisors never like before.
• Better data integration for better resource and MIS planning.

Success Story 2

The US’ leading cloud contact center is another Servion client who integrated its communication with Avaya Five9 CC Connector. A market leader in Cloud-based Contact Centre Software in the US, the client was looking for a technology partner to integrate its two contact center solutions – Avaya Aura UC and Five9 cloud contact center solution, using a robust and flexible connector, coupled with an interface, which can provide the contact center managers with higher visibility on available agents and present status, for better engagement.

Solution

With a “Build Once Deploy Many” approach, Servion built a robust, scalable end-to-end connector, seamlessly facilitating the data integration between Avaya and Five9.

The solution included:

• Real-time integration between Five9 cloud contact center solution and Avaya Aura UC, enabling the connector to extract and display the agent list, present status, and activities.
• A UI-based admin tool for better configuration of the integration
• Building a UI for the dynamic status of the agents and effective handling of customer queries
• End-to-end customer and L3 support, covering troubleshooting, root cause analysis, etc.

Business outcomes

Servion’s deployment brought about several other operational benefits for the client, including:

• Seamless and faster integration, reducing average handle time (AHT) in handling customer queries
• Higher visibility on agent availability, present status, and activities.
• Increase in first-call resolution (FCR) and customer satisfaction score (CSAT)
• Geographical redundancy and high availability
• Complete control over integration and its configuration

Success Story 3

Our third client in focus is one of the top multinational investment bank and financial services corporations in the world. The third-largest bank in the United States and has over 200 million customer accounts and 214,000 employees in over 160 countries, it improved agent-supervisor engagement with GED-125 Connector, integrating Cisco ICM, Avaya AVP and IVR platforms for better CX.

The client was looking for a simple and efficient connector between Cisco ICM and its third-party voice portal systems – Avaya AVP and IVR platforms. The integration had to include a real-time event data feed, call routing interface, and service control interface, supporting all existing IVR requests and functionalities, failover mechanisms, and protocols such as SIP and H.323.

Solution

A pioneer in Customer Experience (CX) and Customer Engagement Management (CEM) with over two decades of experience, Servion implemented GED-125 Connector to seamlessly integrate Cisco ICM, Avaya AVP, and AEP IVR platforms.

The solution included:

• A robust interconnection between CISCO ICM systems and third-party VXML Voice Portal Systems, using the GED-125 VRU integration model.
• A web-application for the GED connector to provide MPP port information and heartbeat through the socket, and CCXML script to provide configuration information.
• A real-time event data feed, call routing interface, and service control interface, supporting all IVR requests for getting/setting CTI Data, Call Information & Transfer through Servion’s VRU Web Service Module.
• Failover mechanism between Primary and Secondary GED-125 connector modules
• Port Availability Status of Avaya MPP to Cisco ICM
• 323 and SIP protocol support

Business outcomes

Servion’s GED-125 Connector brought about several key benefits for the client, including:

• Ability to use the existing Avaya IVR yet integrated with Cisco ICM.
• Complete abstraction from IVR, providing web services for IVR functionalities.
• Extended dial plan supports up to 15 digits.
• Highly secure and two-way SSL and third-party certificates.
• Ability to support close to 1000 simultaneous sessions and requests per GED-125 connector.
• Default Keep-Alive – Heartbeat module between the VRU Web Service interface and the GED-125 connectors
• Alerting and monitoring with SNMP Traps.

The post CTI connectors – Integrating communication platforms for better Customer Experiance appeared first on Servion Blog.

With RPA, companies can simplify mundane tasks to drive continuous business improvement and execute repetitive, rule-based information processes, allowing employees to focus on operations, which require their specialized skills and attention.

Therefore, choosing the right RPA software is crucial for business continuity day-to-day . In a space getting crowded with RPA players, there are things one must consider while choosing software.

How to choose the right RPA tool

To select the best RPA tool, we need to remember the company’s objectives and requirements. The following provides the guidelines for choosing the right RPA tool.

• Ease of use: Users, both technical and non-technical, should be able to create process automation tasks easily (either with limited training or no training at all). It should be functional on both the end-user side as well the technical side. Otherwise, it defeats the purpose of implementing an RPA.
• Easy to integrate: RPA involves complex codes that run behind the scenes. One of the main features of RPA is that it does not overhaul legacy systems; it is built and integrated on top of existing systems. Thus, lowering the costs of implementation.
• Scalability: Spikes in operations are unpredictable. During times like this, your RPA software should allow you to scale up to complete the processes in the same time. This flexibility in scaling up or down when demand calls for increased output is a critical feature to look for. An ideal solution must be able to run tens of thousands of robots (automated robotic processes) from a cluster of enterprise servers.
• Next-gen capabilities: Your RPA should provide comprehensive next-generation capabilities to address your organization’s intelligent process automation needs adequately. Avoid “point” RPA solutions that lack integrated capabilities and require third-party integrations.
• Speed and simplicity: It is better to avoid a solution that requires you to wait for weeks for a custom coding effort. The solution should be simple enough for a business to design and test new robotic automation processes in a few hours or less.
• Enterprise-grade security: Ensure that the RPA solution protects every layer to secure your data and organization. It should strongly encrypt all communications, including granular, role-based access control and management, full integration, secure storage of credentials, comprehensive audit logs of all user and system activity, and changes to the data.
• Analytical reports: The software should be able to gather, organize, and analyze data to provide a detailed analytical report. This will help identify bottlenecks and areas of improvement to fix or improve optimize operational efficiency.

How to implement RPA

Once an RPA solution has been selected, an organization needs to devise its approach for implementation. RPA implementation comprises of several key steps. The following four-step guide will help you understand how to strategize the deployment, development, and launch of an RPA application.

#1 Pick the process you want to automate:

Diving right into automating all processes at the very beginning may not prove successful for enterprises seeking an RPA implementation. First, identify a process that requires automation and run a pilot project. Carry out a thorough assessment by understanding the process and analyzing if the automation is showing signs of improvement for your enterprise. Examine the potential risks and expected values that can be derived from automation. If the pilot succeeds, you can choose other processes to be automated.

#2 Reskilling the team

While automation instills that humans don’t need to overlook processes, a limited form of human supervision ensures the process has no complications or pitstops during the journey. Explain to the team how robotic process automation works and the key takeaways it will bring to the enterprise, such as filtering out redundancy or improving productivity. Through this process, you can identify skill gaps and conduct training programs so they can adapt to the change effortlessly.

#3 Select the right vendor

Every enterprise has unique needs. Choose an RPA vendor that conducts a detailed evaluation and offers customized solutions that fulfill your requirements with a successful RPA implementation. Here is a list of parameters to remember while selecting a vendor:

• A tentative cost and time required to deploy the software bots
• Ability to scale bots to handle spikes and financial complexities
• Data encryption service to ensure privacy and confidentiality
• Alert systems if a process error occurs or a data breach
• Performance monitoring software to record and track actions taken by the bot
• Excellent technical capabilities that can adapt to changing needs and expectations

#4 Define Objectives

This is one of the most crucial steps to be considered while implementing RPA. Carve out a plan that defines what you wish to achieve through automation. Formulate a proper roadmap on your KPIs, end goals, and how you will implement RPA for your enterprise through a structured approach. As a part of your pilot project:

• Identify the pre-requisites for driving process automation.
• Design a framework with a vendor
• Develop an appropriate solution with a process map
• Document, clarify and mark the specific parts automated
• Carry out candid assessments to highlight inconsistencies and gaps in the RPA implementation
• Iterate and resolve the processes repeatedly
• Configure bots to handle changes

The post How to choose and implement RPA for your business appeared first on Servion Blog.

Automation has changed the way each one of us works. Deeming the powerhouse of smart technology, many enterprises turn to automation to save money and time on repetitive and monotonous tasks. Its disruptive nature is increasing the speed of business. It is transforming industries and the customer experience environment from an otherwise two-dimensional space into a three-dimensional one.

But if enterprises do not understand the difference between essential and menial, automation cannot be implemented. Thus, making them miss out on business opportunities, expanding markets and portfolios, and much more.

This blog discusses Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and the journey of a successful RPA implementation, how to choose a software that best fits your business, its relevance today and in the future, and how it can deliver value.

Why you should automate business tasks

Technology has influenced how enterprises conduct business operations regarding fewer resources and infrastructure. Yet, many continue using age-old workflows, even with new-age technology.

In the current competitive landscape, enterprises can no longer depend on manual processes because of the increasing data and information they are regularly exposed to. This is why enterprises struggle from a lack of time and resources. They cannot prioritize tasks that require more human interference, affecting productivity and efficiency in the long run. Therefore, indulging in smart work is imperative.

Based on your brand’s unique needs and goals and those of your customers, the only way to get by is through automation. Automation technology is the pedestal for enterprises that wish to stand out amongst the competition. It plays a significant role in ensuring balance is maintained by digitizing repetitive tasks, streamlining workflows, and eliminating or reducing human intervention.

From simple elementary tasks such as data entry, list management, or database management, automation is a game-changer, and this technology has the potential to change the way we work. With it, you can:

• Improved productivity
• Increased speed of business
• Increased focus on crucial projects or tasks
• Reduced human errors
• Accelerated time to value

Together they contribute to driving and improving customer experience on a large scale. While you may think that it may take a few years for automation to kick-in, think again. It is no longer about future-proofing; it has to be done right here and now. According to Gartner, by 2020, close to 40% of all large enterprises will implement RPA in some form to automate their processes and workflows.

Debunking myths of RPA

A common misconception of RPA is that it involves robots in the physical sense, like a mechanical arm commonly used in large manufacturing units. Instead, it comprises of software robots that automate monotonous and repetitive tasks.

While the influx of AI technologies has given us great experiences and made our lives so much easier, there’s a perceived notion that automation is taking away jobs. But from a broader perspective, RPA is a new change. With it, there is a whole world of opportunities waiting to be discovered and explored. According to McKinsey, less than 5% of jobs can be automated with demonstrable technologies.

Another common belief that many perceive it that robotic process automation is not applicable beyond the banking and finance, healthcare, telecom and IT, and retail sectors. With a proven track record in those industries, many are still unaware this burgeoning technology now applies to any industry. For example, routine front and back-office tasks can be automated with RPA.

RPA leads business strategies. Its ability to improve efficiency is the key reason enterprises are considering it. But many are still reluctant to adopt it because of its expensive nature. Though it does come with a hefty price tag, one of the most significant advantages of implementing it is that you get instant results. Using a bot to the work of multiple people more rapidly and efficiently will be a big cost-benefit, essentially tripling your capacity.

Some of the other myths include:

• RPA is 100% automated
• Users need to know RPA programming languages to use RPA
• RPA is the same as other automation tools

What is Robotic Process Automation?

Robotic process automation is a specific type of process automation technique. An emerging trend in the market, it uses artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to handle a high volume, repetitive manual data-intensive tasks performed by humans. It can adapt to changing situations, exceptions, and circumstances, letting enterprises with legacy systems to automate their workflows by creating an intelligent digital workforce.

RPA helps employees and robots collaborate to deliver exceptional customer experiences. It can be broadly categorized into three main categories based on the functionality and scope of work.

• Assisted Automation: Robots and employees work together on semi-automated processes
• Unassisted Automation: Robots handle automated processes, without human intervention
• Robotic Workforce Supervision: A dashboard displays robot queues and workflow status; system alerts of automation breaches

Enabling the digital workforce of tomorrow

The future is automated, and the increasing use of process automation is generating a significant shift towards a smarter and intelligent workforce. It has created a digital-ready workforce for the evolving workplace where digital transformation has become a necessity for survival. With enterprises looking to transform operations and make them less manual and more digital, they need to use RPA and their associated solutions.

Traditional automation always formed a part of an enterprise’s IT infrastructure. Today, RPA goes beyond just data management but combines advanced software systems and programs that integrate all your processes. It sits on top of the entire system, enabling the organization to quickly implement the technology without changing the existing infrastructure and systems.

As an agnostic platform, RPA is a natural evolution that can be scalable to suit any sized organization. It can comprehend the actions of the user at the UI level and can run as a back-end process without disrupting workflows. As a quick fix solution compared to traditional automation, RPA enables businesses to act quickly as they mimic the role of a human worker. Using a combination of attended, unattended, and cognitive automation, enterprises can achieve complete digital transformation. According to Deloitte, 1 minute of work for the robot is equal to approximately 15 minutes of work for a person.

Should investing in RPA be an impulsive decision

Though RPA does offer a solution to many business problems, it is not a silver bullet that is the answer to every issue. As a well-defined piece of technology, it should be deployed efficiently to gain the full benefits of business operations. According to research, RPA forms a big part of the digital transformation strategies for many businesses. It has become a standard and prioritized component of enterprise transformation plans. Therefore, it needs to be a well-informed decision by multiple stakeholders after an extensive analysis of the enterprise’s process needs.

RPA can often be represented as a virtual employee. It seamlessly works with existing applications and carries out back-office tasks autonomously and error-free. Once the RPA interprets the actions of specific processes, it can operate data, trigger responses, create actions, and communicate with other systems on its own. It also interacts with different systems and has the intelligence to decide if a process should occur or not based on rules or logic parameters.

The post Get to know all about RPA in under 15 minutes appeared first on Servion Blog.

Companies large and small are hurrying up to quickly establish their new work-from-home mode for the first time to ensure the agents’ safety and the prevention of the coronavirus spread.

The majority still rely on on-premises technologies coupled with physical telephones, desktop computers, and contact center applications installed on local servers. For them, supporting a remote work is a big nightmare, as the customer demand remains high, and call and ticket volumes continue to spike unpredictably. Maintaining business continuity has never been more critical!

Considering the cloud’s short and long-term benefits in a crisis like COVID-19, CX leaders should have exercised some due diligence in advance on potential cloud contact center solutions and planned their contact center’s transition to the cloud long ago! If they haven’t, they should act quickly before it’s too late! Servion offers a swift and effortless transition from on-premise to cloud call center in less than two weeks without disrupting business operations.

With Servion’s platform-agnostic, cloud-based solutions, Servion can set up a risk-free, disruption-free, cloud contact center, which can maintain business continuity, tackle PCI compliance, and deliver an exceptional customer experience. With our “anytime, anywhere, and any device” solutions, your agents working from home can now engage with customers from their homes, take secure payments with a pay-as-you-go model, and no upfront deployment costs.

Servion’s cloud contact center services, supported by a best of breed cloud technology partners, make your cloud transition quicker, more comfortable and cost-effective under your business needs including

• Deploying a CCaaS-based work-from-home model for agents to work remotely and continue to be in touch with the organization and customers. Activating all necessary business applications, based on unique contact center configuration, to enable agents and supervisors to perform their jobs from home effectively.

• Agent expansions to handle higher call volume due to the rising customer needs in the pandemic-stricken regions.

• Automation and self-service, supported by proactive and timely notifications via SMS or voice with no agent involvement, to deflect unexpected call volume and create a more dynamic customer experience.

• Push to digital, enabling alternative communication channels like chat, instead of inbound voice calls. Allowing messaging for non-critical call types, and how these calls will be routed, and who needs to be notified.

Do you want to know more about Servion’s quick-to-deploy solutions to get your cloud contact center up and running quickly?

Learn how Servion enables Remote Contact Centers during the Covid-19 Crisis.

Explore Servion’s Cloud Contact Center solutions

Talk to our CX specialist now.

The post COVID-19: Ensure a quick and seamless cloud migration with Servion appeared first on Servion Blog.

The study showed that a quarter of the contact center IT staff’s time is being invested in compliance-related activities alone. As far as the ability of their organization to meet the compliance requirements of today is concerned, 97 percent of them have at least one concern, ranging from introducing new regulations and the growing threat of cyber-attacks to the increasing complexity of internal systems.

Is there an effective solution to cope with the never-ending challenge of compliance? Fortunately, there is – automation! Compliance automation, aka automated compliance, is an emerging category of solutions that provide organizations with workflow capabilities related to compliance, including self-assessments, control analyses, corrective action planning, and controls testing. It can help contact centers optimize resources, empower employees to ensure compliance, and build trust among customers.

In a contact center, for instance, automation can enable outbound dialers to check every number real-time against the state, federal, and other do-not-call lists, and either allow the call or block automatically. It can also help the dialer consider the factors like time zones, daylight savings, holidays, calling curfew, and emergency restrictions to ensure that all outbound calls are done legally. This means that contact centers have bulletproof protection against all calling regulations. Automation can also enforce internal policies, helping to onboard staff, and instill a compliance-focused environment.

If the contact center compliance isn’t automated, you will have a tough time spending your valuable resources and time to stay on top of the latest regulations. Whereas when you automate compliance, you’re freeing up a lot of time to aggressively hit the best prospects and close deals in your markets.

Benefits of compliance automation

• Cost-effective and straightforward implementation compared to manual controls.
• Free up your agents’ time and help them focus on complex problems.
• Accurate and efficient management of potential risks
• Quick access to compliance status and audit information
• Instant risk management based on real-time data.
• Uniformed implementation of compliance policies and process across multiple platforms in the entire organization
• Unmatched visibility and audibility
• Automated auditing and reporting process
• Reduced number of inadequate or inaccurate reporting mistakes

It is cumbersome and ineffective to maintain a dedicated staff of specialized attorneys and IT managers to remain on top of complex and constantly changing federal and state regulations. Therefore, to be 100 percent certain they do not violate applicable laws, regardless of dialing method and equipment, consider an automated, real-time, and always-current compliance service that integrates with their internal systems.

The post How automation can enforce regulatory compliance appeared first on Servion Blog.

Why do hackers target healthcare data? There are many reasons hackers are so interested in accessing healthcare facility and patient information. First, unlike banks and financial networks, most hospitals and medical facilities are lagging in introducing security measures, making them easy and vulnerable to attack. Medical devices connected healthcare delivery systems, and mobile healthcare devices (e.g., wearables, monitoring devices) are also an easy entry point for attackers.

Second, health records and other patient-related information have massive demand in the darknet. The high value of medical records on the dark web has surpassed that of social security and credit card numbers. These records can sell for up to $1,000 online, depending on the completeness of the information contained within.

Third, health records not only consist of health information, but pictures, medical records, addresses, demographic data (namely names, birth dates, and other personal identifiers) and even sensitive financial data that could compromise patients’ privacy and financial security. Fraudsters can easily use this information for fraudulent activities, stalking, and harassment. They can even create fake IDs to buy drugs and weapons, and file fake claims with insurance companies.

To protect the processing, storing, and handling of patient health information (PHI), Congress passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in 1996. In 2013, the HIPAA Omnibus Rule came into effect with significant updates and clarifications on previous definitions, expanding its reach and cover over more individuals and organizations, like subcontractors, consultants, and storage companies.

HIPAA requires all covered entities to adhere to and verify their compliance with the HIPAA Security Rule. It protects the patients’ privacy and health information by giving more control and setting boundaries for the use and release of confidential health information. It also holds the violators accountable with civil and criminal penalties.

For contact centers, HIPAA changes the way they answer customer calls and store information. To understand the relationship between HIPAA compliance and the contact center, we have summarized some of the vital HIPAA requirements when handling PHI during all outbound and inbound communications related to billing, collections, medical insurance, ambulatory services, and appointment scheduling.

• Contact centers should secure all health information via encryption, making it unreadable if intercepted by a public Wi-Fi, or a device, used for calls, is misplaced or lost. It means that PHI must be secure in all communications, be it a phone call, forwarded email chain, or an appointment reminder.
• All call recordings should be 100% secure and optional.
• Contact centers require patient consent for call recording. They should not record calls by default and should switch off call recordings if needed.
• Contact centers should ensure voluntary consent and caller (patient) verification.
• Patient authorization should verify at least two identifiers, such as date of birth, address, or contact number. For billing questions, the patients should confirm the most recent date of service or invoice number.
• Contact centers need written consent from the patients to make outbound calls from an auto-dialer.
• Even though the patient has given consent for calls, the agents can make outbound calls only for:
  • post-discharge follow-up calls
  • intimations on prescriptions
  • home healthcare instructions
  • hospital pre-registration instructions
  • provision of treatment
  • health checkup
  • appointments and reminders
  • test reports and pre-operative instructions
• During a call, the agents should reveal their names and contact details to the patients.
• The users should automatically logout from the system following inactivity for a stipulated period.
• Protected information cannot be copied and pasted from an external network to any external device.
• Patient health information should be accessible only to authorized users.
• Texting solutions should have access only to authorized personnel with a secure login.
• Test messages should not exceed 160 characters, and messages can be sent just once in a day.
• Text messages for appointments or medication refills should contain no personal identifiers.
• Calls should be short and precise. Contact centers cannot call patients two to three times a week.

Besides, the contact center must offer comprehensive training to its agents and Privacy Security Compliance Officer (PSCO), a required position under HIPAA that oversees compliance.

The post HIPAA privacy and security compliance simplified appeared first on Servion Blog.

Going beyond its status quo of automating repeatable, high-volume workflow tasks to maximize cost efficiency and employee productivity, RPA is emerging as one of the most powerful, AI-enabled technologies, helping companies achieve much larger goals.

The technology is moving from automating traditional back office or behind-the-scenes tasks in HR, finance and accounting like data entry, loan processing, reporting processes, maintaining inventory, and maintaining paperwork to middle and front office processes, where software robots can mimic exact human behavior to execute a sequence of meaningful steps/actions in both “attended” and “unattended” modes.

Attended bots work alongside humans to deliver attended automation, while unattended bots execute batch operations or interact with applications independent of human involvement. In both cases, RPA helps contact center agents, for instance, spend less time switching between applications or pulling out customer information during live customer calls and focus on high-value tasks.

Robots can interact with apps and systems just like agents do, but they are faster, more accurate, and highly secure. This can save time and reduce call handling times, turnaround times, and operational costs while improving cross-sell and up-sell opportunities and agents’ productivity. And, RPA is easy to integrate into any environment by replacing the infrastructure and systems.

Servion is a strategic partner for several global players in implementing enterprise-level RPA tools that enable server-based robots to automate the entire processes with both “attended” and “unattended” automation capabilities. Let’s look at some of the key features that Servion’s RPA solutions offer to contact centers.

1. Integrated agent desktop: A single-screen access to disparate systems and applications through a presentation layer, providing the agents with easy access to information to keep pace with the ever-evolving customer expectations.

2. Dynamic data management: A unified knowledge repository that the agents can access from a single click in real-time. The relevant customer data like order status, order number, pending support tickets (if any), shipment ID, etc., is present at every touchpoint in the end-to-end customer journey.

3. Error-free processing: Integrated and automated data entry and navigation between systems without disrupting the underlying infrastructure. This ensures processing and information accuracy, reduced errors, and compliance.

4. Empowered agents: Bots automate much of the time-consuming and redundant manual tasks, like application launch and mouse clicks; field entries, like cutting and pasting from different apps; and basic calculations, eliminating the need to switch between various applications.

5. Streamlined wrap-up processes: RPA robots carry out all wrap-up processes like inquiry capture four to five times faster than agents. This dramatically improves wrap-up stage productivity, handle times and service-level agreements, and reduces AHT by triggering automated processes from system events.

6. Analyze and report: Customizable audit options, call recording, and analysis deliver insights for continuous process optimization. A centralized robot management tool monitors the health of the system and allocates robotic resources based on real-time needs.

Want to learn more about how Servion enhances your overall customer experience and workflow processes using RPA? Talk to our CX specialist to set up a demo.

The post Contact Center RPA: Going beyond the normal appeared first on Servion Blog.

However, I’m hearing consistent challenges on three fronts. Projects are harder to scale than envisioned. The choice of technology and approach often feels like a maze. Eventually, businesses wrestle striking the right balance of automation and human touch, making sure automation doesn’t get in the way of the customer experience. Today, I’d like to propose a five-element framework for putting together a dynamic automation roadmap.

1. Look at technologies as a toolbox

A wide range of technologies are available:

• Interactive voice response (IVR) systems and their conversational evolution
• Help centers on the Web and mobile
• Conversational assistants and chatbots
• Answer bots
• Bot platforms
• Robotic process automation (RPA)
• Workflow and low-code platforms, sometimes called digital automation platforms

While some of these are well-known solutions, several nuances and dependencies are less understood. Answer bots use unsupervised learning to pull answers from a knowledge base while conversational assistants, be they chatbots or voicebots, require training on specific intents. The notion of intent isn’t easily grasped. We tend to think of intent in general terms, whereas for conversational AI, intents are pretty narrow. Successful deployments will have hundreds of intents, with each requiring training. Bot platforms offer a simpler — scripted — approach, but may require a large number of scripts, and that makes maintenance difficult. Likewise, RPA is easy to deploy, but sometimes rebuilding a process using modern workflow technologies is preferable to stacking layers of automation.

The first thing to do is to look at this array of technologies as a toolbox and understand their specificities rather than picking one and trying to apply it across all use cases. When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail! It doesn’t mean that you need them all. You should choose a few based on the discussion that follows and pick the right one based on the job at hand.

2. Choose your project approach

The nice thing about these modern technologies is that most of them can be implemented using an Agile approach — although some of them, such as IVR, might require additional tools to enable rapid iterations. While I advocate for use of an Agile methodology, you might decide otherwise. For example, if your organization is in a highly regulated environment, a more formal approach might be warranted.

The choice of a project methodology is the second item of your automation framework. As part of this choice, you want to decide on three things:

• Instrumentation to measure not just the ROI of automation but also its impact on the customer experience and satisfaction
• A process to deal with knowledge needs, including gaps, content reformatting for voice and messaging channels, and feedback loops
• Eventually, a governance model to ensure the automations added stay manageable and don’t become an additional element of complexity

3. Develop your interaction taxonomy

While various technologies shine at different types of interactions, the industry is still exploring how best to define use cases for each. The picture gets complicated because the boundaries between pre- and post-sales interactions are vanishing. Many pre-sales assistance interactions are customer service in nature. Also, with the development of the subscription economy, many service interactions are becoming sales opportunities.

I’ve been leveraging a framework based on three types of interactions: informational, transactional, and grievance. Gartner recently introduced a framework based on the job to be done. Its six resolution jobs include transact, confirm, discuss, workaround, validate, and vent. Whether you use an existing framework or create your own, you need a classification. An interaction taxonomy should be the third component of your framework.

4. Decide where to automate

Self-service is a form of automation through which you push the burden of getting things done to the customer. It can address consumers’ appetite to self-help or explore options by themselves. It can backfire, putting too much effort on the customer. It can also remove your brand from desired interactions. Agent-side automation, whereby automation is used to assist an agent, is the second option. The third, pure automation, consists of automating the process either by stitching together several steps or building a new integrated process.

You should leverage your interaction taxonomy, in combination with the desired outcome, problem resolution, or more open-ended assistance, to identify the best form of automation. Deciding where to automate is the fourth element of your framework.

5. Evaluate process automation feasibility

A few years ago, McKinsey estimated that 30% of customer interactions could be automated. The score may seem low compared to manufacturing or finance, industries that enjoy a higher degree of automation potential. The 30% figure takes into account all the exceptions with which customer service has to deal. Also, when you layer automation on top of a process, there’s always a risk of adding to its complexity. You need to evaluate whether automation is the way to go, whether you’re better off having a person handle the task, or if you should redesign the entire process.

Forrester’s Craig Le Clair, a principal analyst serving enterprise architecture and business process professionals, came up with a rule of five for RPA. Consider robotic automation for processes requiring fewer than 500 clicks, five decisions, and five integration points. I recently discovered a process automation score that’s similar to the customer effort score. It lets you evaluate and prioritize which processes to automate based on attributes such as the daily volume, the human effort, the applications to integrate, and the amount of exceptions. The fifth element of your framework is a method to evaluate which processes you should automate.

Automation has become inevitable. To make the most of all the available technologies without inducing customer experience backfires or adding complexity, you need to put together a dynamic automation roadmap. Doing so requires the assembly of technology toolbox, the choice of a project methodology, the classification of your interactions, an approach to define where automation should take place, and a model to evaluate process automation feasibility.

This article was originally published on NoJitter.

The post 5 Key Steps for Your Customer Service Automation Roadmap appeared first on Servion Blog.

Voice has remained pervasive for business communications. While analysts forecast that the explosion in the volume of customer service interactions will mostly come from digital communications, they stress the central role of voice calls as a last resort for complex questions or for handling important moments of the customer experience. Voice communication isn’t limited to customer support. The availability and immediacy of mobile have driven an increase in the number of sales and marketing related calls. A few years ago, BIA Kelsey predicted that calls to businesses from smartphones would reach 160 billion this year.

Voice Garners Importance

It’s very interesting to watch the inside sales space. For decades, it was dominated by cold calling, until email and social outreach emerged. Inside sales immediately turned to these new digital channels, leveraging technology to prospect at scale. However, after a few years, the industry rediscovered the importance of having live conversations with prospects. Today, a call with a potential buyer has once again become the primary goal for most organizations.

In the marketing field, mobile has led to more business calls. After searching on the Internet, they often choose to click on a call button to discuss with someone the details of a potential purchase. Google found 70% of mobile searchers are calling a business directly from search results.

After seeing chatbots boost the development of self-services on the web and over messaging channels, we are now witnessing an equal surge of voicebots enabling conversational experience over the voice channel.

Eventually, as large volumes of interactions get shifted to self-service and automation, brands are placing a high value on having meaningful voice conversations with their customers to remain close to them and develop greater intimacy.

Consumers’ Behavior Fuels the Trend

Voice has also become more important in the daily lives of consumers. Digital assistants on mobile phones such as Siri or Google Assistant are getting used more frequently and for more sophisticated tasks using voice. Amazon Alexa and Google Home illustrate the growing popularity of voice at home. These voice assistants are expanding rapidly and should cross the 200 million mark this year. All these data points show that consumers are embracing voice more than ever.

The Heart of Voice Revival

Speech technologies — speech recognition and text to speech — are central to the renewed popularity of voice. The past decade has seen all the large technology providers making huge investments for developing them. The FAMGAs —Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon — and their Chinese counterpart BATXs — Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and Xiaomi — share the vision that voice is a critical mode of interaction for a variety of use cases.

These technology giants see strategic value in speech for interacting with applications and devices or when searching for information. Their interest isn’t just to own these technologies but to make them available to the largest possible user base to train and perfect them. There are also several open-source options available. The democratization of speech technologies has created an ecosystem of companies innovating voice applications.

Speech-based Innovation Drives Voice Usage

With this renewed interest in voice capabilities, the market has expanded with a variety of services, and specialized segments are forming, including:

• Sales conversation intelligence software — from the likes of Chorus and Gong — records, transcribes and analyzes B2B sales conversations to uncover patterns of successful calls. It tracks a wide range of metrics including the balance of time talking versus listening or at which stage prices are being discussed. The new frontier includes real-time guidance of sales rep based on what is being said.
• Speech and interaction analytics follows a parallel track for customer service interactions. Vendors such as CallMiner and NICE Nexidia mine customer support calls. They can check adherence to guidelines or correlate what has been said with the support experience. They analyze the attributes of best-performing agents and use them to train and develop others. They spot emotions and specific spoken phrases to trigger the listening and review of calls.
• Meeting transcription is also penetrating the corporate world. It can take care of notetaking, recording decisions, and logging allocated action points. It’s rapidly getting integrated into most conferencing services such as GoToMeeting or Zoom. Some providers like Microsoft and Cisco are taking this further with real-time speech translation of meetings.
• Voice biometrics from vendors such as Nuance or Pindrop simplifies identification dialogs. Shortening identification removes a source of frustration. It also provides a more reliable way of authenticating callers. It eventually enables deeper personalization by simplifying caller identification.
• Virtual customer assistants (VCAs) are also coming to the voice channel. Many startups have joined the ranks of historical providers like [24]7 or Verint Nex tIT to provide voice solutions. These voicebots are promising to change the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) experience, which still amounts to almost half of the customer service interactions. They are starting to be used to automate agent after-call work based on what has been said.
• Call tracking and intelligence software pioneered by vendors such as DialogTech or Invoca help manage click to calls from search or ads. Popular in industries such as automotive or insurance, these applications analyze the intent of potential buyers, route them to the most appropriate agent or dealership, and provide marketers with comprehensive analytics on the prospect experience and the effectiveness of the promotion campaigns.

Each of these emerging categories includes many providers and startups and is driving the renaissance of voice communications — propelling it into the digital world.

This article was originally published on NoJitter.

The post The Renaissance of Voice Communications appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> https://servion.com/blog/ux-design-meets-cx-why-does-it-matter/ Fri, 08 May 2020 11:31:02 +0000 https://servion.com/blog/?p=3606 Today’s customers interact with brands on different channels and devices. To deliver a smooth omnichannel experience that all tech-savvy customers expect from the brands today, their contact centers need to have excellent UX, professionally designed around a customer’s needs, behaviors, and preferences. Poor UX can lead to poor customer perception and business outcomes. Imagine this: […]

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]]> Today’s customers interact with brands on different channels and devices. To deliver a smooth omnichannel experience that all tech-savvy customers expect from the brands today, their contact centers need to have excellent UX, professionally designed around a customer’s needs, behaviors, and preferences. Poor UX can lead to poor customer perception and business outcomes.

Imagine this:

You’re a customer, doing online shopping on a confusing website. You can’t find the item that you liked in the right color. So, you decide to pick a similar item. You add it to the cart and fulfill the online payment. But the package never comes! Then, you call the customer service and wait on hold for 20 minutes. In the end, they refund you because it turns out what you ordered was out of stock. Frustrating, right?

Here are some of the common roadblocks that sabotage the user experience:

• Complex navigation: It is the most common issue in UX. While building a comprehensive service or product with deeply nested information, it is tempting to use complex navigation that ends up becoming difficult to use and understand.
• Interruptions: Interruptions like channel switching, or from human and digital agents, can be annoying. Over time, they can lose a lot of customers and lots of sales.
• Disparate customer segmentation based on business preferences
• Lack of quality information: Misleading or missing silos of communication in multiple channels
• Unreliability: Inability to handle peak loads and long queues

UX is the shorthand word for the overall experience of a customer with a brand’s site, software, or app. The idea is to make it easier for customers to self-service in all channels. It’s an intuitive approach that lets the customer interact in more natural ways, whether they’re conversing with support, typing, or navigating the website.

UX takes into account things like usability, ease of navigation, and visual hierarchy. It can be measured by using the net promoter score, customer loyalty stats, customer satisfaction, abandonment rate, error rate, and clicks to completion.

The goal of UX is to present an optimized design that lets the customer navigate with ease. Not only will this improve the customer’s satisfaction, but it plays a big role in attracting and retaining loyal customers. Having excellent UI and UX can provide a competitive edge to your brand, making you stand out. As a unique brand differentiator, they improve your brand loyalty, ROI, and customer satisfaction.

Designing a better UX for contact centers

Designing a good UX for a contact center is a bit more complicated. The UX design is not just intended to serve one particular user type – instead, it needs to serve three different groups with totally different expectations and needs:

• The contact center agents
• The contact center managers or supervisors, admin, analytics
• The consumer

How to design the UX for contact center agents?

Contact center agents interact with customers in many ways, besides phone calls. They need to provide instant customer support solutions and close sales and deals on a strict timeline.

To accomplish this, agents need the right tools to access relevant information in a fast, easy way. These tools should empower them to provide the best customer experience as efficiently as possible. Here are some key things the UX should do for contact center agents.

• The system should be simple, intuitive, and easy to operate.
• Effortlessly provide agents with all necessary, real-time information in a unified dashboard to better serve the customers.
• Integrate all information into a single repository that underpins all customer interactions for easy access.
• The dashboard should have a clear, uncluttered layout, keeping the agents’ after-call work to a minimum.
• Display customer service metrics such as the number of calls waiting, average wait times, and other such performance statistics should be in an easy-to-understand format.
• Provide key performance indicator (KPI) data to show whether or not the agents are on track to meet specific objectives and SLAs.
• In addition to KPIs and metrics, the dashboard should indicate any compliance issues that may arise, especially during customer interactions.
• Straightforward reporting tools.

How to design the UX for contact center supervisors/managers?

The management team has the difficult task of keeping the contact center running smoothly. Their work is especially difficult when it comes to peak traffic times, and they’ll most often focus on agent management, and call monitoring.

What should our UX provide to make things as easy as possible for them, so they can help keep things running smoothly?

• the system should be easy to use and monitor agent productivity and call stats- including daily and hourly metrics.
• Critical KPIs formatted in text or graphs and charts to quickly make informed decisions on important subjects.
• Ability to handle several different queues at once.
• Contact center summary for overall status, performance, goals, and trends
• Ability to keep track of agents and queue metrics from their screens to streamline business processes.
• Provide filter preferences to improve contact center efficiency.
• Ability to review all of their Call Centers at once.
• Ability to change the availability status of each agent
• Provide a precise analysis of data to show whether certain goals are met.
• Identify the most efficient and least efficient agents.
• Throw up insightful, relevant real-time data.
• Allow easy communication between the manager and the agents.

How to design the UX for customers?

Here is, arguably, the most critical part of the UX. The customer’s experience is essential to the success of the brad, as we have previously discussed. Furthermore, we need this UX to be able to track critical KPIs with no compromise to the quality of the user. Here are some things to include in our UX, to help accomplish that-

• UX should work seamlessly across all communication channels, so customers can switch between channels as they please.
• No ambiguity. The system should be simple and straightforward.
• Ability to easily update the system with new features and channels
• Ability to adapt or customize the contact center workflow, menus, etc., to suit the customers’ changing needs.
• Combine multiple apps and tools into one. Avoid the complex combination of apps to respond to customer queries.
• Ensure that outreach is done, personalized to the date and time zone of the customer.
• Establish a seamless transition between channels
• Allow call-backs if a caller cannot reach an agent.
• Make it easy for callers to get to the same agent each time they call.
• Ensure clear visibility to the alerts on the customer accounts, to avoid financial fraud.
• Keep track of TCPA, Do Not Call List, GDPR, and internal regulations within the dashboard so that the dialer can Easily stay compliant with regulation.

High-quality UX is the key to delivering exceptional customer experience. UX is a significant component of CX. It plays a vital role in the overall success of a program, brand reputation, and customers’ loyalty to your brand. Failures in either area lead to horrible, overall customer experience.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/building-a-future-proof-cx-software-stack-consider-this/ Thu, 30 Apr 2020 10:33:16 +0000 https://servion.com/blog/?p=3592 I’ve previously discussed how the customer experience (CX) imperative has been evolving for businesses. Now, CX is almost always interwoven with other digital transformation initiatives, both leveraging and depending on technology. For large enterprises and other companies, this means architecting a cohesive software stack, coupled with the transition to the cloud. When it comes to […]

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]]> I’ve previously discussed how the customer experience (CX) imperative has been evolving for businesses. Now, CX is almost always interwoven with other digital transformation initiatives, both leveraging and depending on technology. For large enterprises and other companies, this means architecting a cohesive software stack, coupled with the transition to the cloud.

When it comes to building these stacks, these six important topics should be on your drawing board.

Rethink omnichannel

While omnichannel has been part of most projects for the past several years, practitioners continuously face a challenge to make the expected return on investment (ROI). If we look at the initiatives undertaken, most primarily focus on adding new channels — offering the choice to customers. Indeed, Gartner found that the average number of channels offered for customer service jumped from 3.7 in 2014 to 5.4 in 2018. However, it also found a few worrisome things we can relate to as consumers. There is an unfortunate correlation between the number of available channels and the number of contacts required for resolution. The more offered, the more interactions are needed to get things done. While technology is available to carry the context from one to another, it creates frictions and elongates resolution. Additionally, research shows that the breadth of channels offered isn’t moving the needle on customer satisfaction.

Shifting our focus to effortless resolutions means guiding the customer to the right channel for the job to be done. Consumers are very open to such recommendations. In the absence of directions, it is not uncommon that people try several channels simultaneously.

Enable continuous experiences

In the omnichannel world that we live in, consumers embrace messaging for its compelling conversation style of communication. It’s asynchronous, no longer requiring customers to wait on hold or for a response while an agent is looking for information. It also gives customer service representatives more time to handle tasks more effectively, and provides a persistent context allowing bots and humans to collaborate.

This model isn’t limited to messaging apps — it’s also available for webchat and mobile applications, and email. Solutions are now capable of delivering the messaging experience across multiple channels, and messaging should be implemented as a mode of communication rather than a specific channel to enable continuous experiences.

Build an automation framework

The sheer increase in interaction volume has made automation inevitable; this isn’t necessarily a bad thing — with artificial intelligence (AI) and bots coming of age. Moreover, consumers like to do things by themselves when exploring their options. While I’m bullish about these technologies, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. Full automation remains limited to simple interactions. Most start with self-service and requires an escalation to an agent or some further human-driven steps to be completed.

Enterprises need to build a framework for allowing customers or agents to leverage different automation technologies such as conversational AI, speech, biometrics, robotic, or low-code automation. The framework should let customers or agents harness them for either automation or assistance. It should eventually combine humans and robots for end-to-end resolution and fulfillment of customer service requests.

Create a context store

Assembling a 360-degree customer context has been the industry Holy Grail. It had been the promise of CRM for many years…until Salesforce acquired MuleSoft, conceding that another piece of software was needed to pull customer information from different clouds and applications. Contact center vendors have also been building up their customer interaction history repositories. A few new entrants have even created their contact center solution around a customer information and context repository. For example, Zendesk offers Sunshine, an open-source middleware option that lets you create a data structure tailored to customer experiences. Low-code software vendors have baked the ability to create customer profiles into their platforms. Eventually, in the marketing adjacency, we are seeing the formation of a new category — customer data platforms — aiming at a similar goal focused on serving relevant ads.

There are many options to choose from, but no out-of-the-box solution. Enterprises should pick a foundation on which to create their own customer context store.

Enable employee engagement

Gallup’s latest State of the American Workplace Report found that the top 25% companies with the most engaged employees enjoy 24% to 59% lower turnover, 17% higher productivity, and 10% increase in customer metrics. The changing profile of the workforce is turning it into an imperative.

Building engagement has three technology ramifications. First, it requires a consistent way to gather employee feedback. Second, enterprises must evolve their performance management. It should balance productivity metrics with measures of agents’ impact on CX and positive attitude to driving improvement. Third, businesses must provide their customer service representatives with the right tools to take care of their customers. This often entails modernizing their desktop and giving them access to knowledge sharing, collaboration, and gamification tools.

Define your data architecture

The contact center is arguably the department that most relies on metrics to measure performance. Nevertheless, practitioners continue to wrestle with making sense of all the available data. Software fragmentation with already 12 apps on average in a customer service stack is part of the complexity. New data from speech analytics, voice-of-the-customer (VoC), and feedback management are adding to the mix.

Data plays a key role in guiding the design of effortless resolutions, personalizing customer journeys, and enabling employee engagement initiatives. It’s also what feeds AI. It’s critical to lay out a data architecture for collecting and using all the interaction and activity data processed by the various software. It includes defining how data should be staged to ensure quality, and how it can be correlated, aggregated, and fed into the context store. This data architecture should become the foundation into which applications need to connect and from which key performance indicators (KPIs) should be calculated.

The accelerating transition of customer care infrastructures to the cloud requires enterprises to think beyond migration and develop an architecture to enable great experiences.

With these practices, you can build a software stack that enables your business to meet rising customer expectations continuously, improving the overall customer experience and increasing customer satisfaction.

This article was originally published on NoJitter
.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/cloud-contact-centers-no-longer-if-but-how/ Fri, 17 Apr 2020 14:49:49 +0000 https://servion.com/blog/?p=3579 Cloud adoption for contact centers has been accelerating over the past 18 months. Large enterprises are now choosing it as their target model. While the migration to a cloud contact center is straightforward for small and midsize operations, it is harder for organizations with over a couple of hundreds of seats. I want to discuss […]

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]]> Cloud adoption for contact centers has been accelerating over the past 18 months. Large enterprises are now choosing it as their target model. While the migration to a cloud contact center is straightforward for small and midsize operations, it is harder for organizations with over a couple of hundreds of seats. I want to discuss these challenges and how to address them.

The cloud started to penetrate the contact center market from the bottom. Each year, it would become the preferred approach of the next-largest size band. In 2018, the industry pivoted, with the majority of businesses of all sizes choosing cloud as their desired end-game. Gartner is now predicting that, by 2022, contact center as a service (CCaaS) will be the preferred adoption model in 50% of contact centers. However, a gap exists between choosing and doing — and bridging that gap requires building a transition path.

Can It Be as Simple as Flipping a Switch?

For customer service operations with up to 100 agents or so, migrating to the cloud can be straightforward and quick. A single cloud contact center software solution can replace a collection of systems. Companies typically start piloting the new solution with a few agents handling a subset of customer interactions. They can use agent desktop and integrations out of the box or with minor customizations. Once trained on the software in a day or two, agents can start taking calls, redirected from the interactive voice response (IVR) application. Provisioning is almost instant, and testing the solution takes just a matter of weeks.

While validation takes place, the contact center organization can configure the new system, reprogram workflows for all interaction types, and create the core set of dashboards and reports. The limited size of the operation keeps change management relatively simple to handle. While the industry is not willing to compromise on features, the modernization and simplification provided by a new cloud system help overcome the angst of changing and concerns about a few features not being carried forward. The transition takes from a few weeks up to a couple of months, at the end of which organizations typically “flip the switch, having all agents logging into the new system almost instantaneously.

Vendors have developed standard processes to execute such projects. The small size of their professional services organizations attests to the simplicity of migration projects for this level of customer.

Dealing with Application Complexity

Larger enterprises and operations rely on many applications and systems. In surveying enterprises, Aberdeen Group has found that enterprises use on average 20 different software and tools for customer service, Omer Minkarat, a VP and principal analyst at the firm, told me. More recently, Gartner has found an average of 12 applications in use within contact centers.

This application sprawl is often the result of different divisions or regions making separate buying decisions. Some purchases can be recent, not fully amortized, or too early to change. Large enterprises often need or prefer best-of-breed solutions. So, while migration to the cloud gives the opportunity of application consolidation, getting to a single one is elusive. You could even argue that the cloud is adding to the proliferation by making applications easier to buy and deploy.

Defining the end state requires a careful analysis of all the systems in place. Organizations cannot overlook the extensive use of many features of each application of the contact center stack. Once they’ve defined the target, it is desirable to decouple as much of the various software as possible to enable their moving to the cloud independently. Nevertheless, organizations can create a migration path. Each phase induces some overhead, including work to preserve existing integrations.

Modernizing the Agent Desktop

There is now a broad appreciation of how critical the agent role is for providing great experiences to customers. They are the first “victim” of application proliferation, having to juggle a variety of tools on desktops that often are antiquated. The migration to the cloud provides the opportunity to modernize the desktop.

Improvement of the agent workplace also plays an important role in the management of the transition. From a migration standpoint, a single unified desktop can insulate against underlying changes made to the contact center infrastructure. A contact center organization can put together a single training plan and roll agents to the new desktop as soon as ready.

Getting Global

Many large enterprises have global operations. While they can easily consolidate digital channels anywhere in the world, voice calls require a carefully designed network. Skype and WhatsApp have become so pervasive that we tend to think that voice communications are plug and play. A call from one country to a data center in another and then to an agent will go through several networks, each adding latency and inducing jitter. To ensure call quality, you need to design your network. You will probably require local termination for toll-free number or cost reasons. You will also need to be able to bridge calls locally to optimize voice paths. You might have to accommodate existing telecom agreements that cannot be terminated without inducing financial penalties.

Many countries have regulations that impose call recording to take place locally. Customer data storage is often subject to similar rules. The cloud infrastructure must be designed together with the network connectivity to support applications hosted in multiple clouds and data centers and agents in multiple sites or working from home. Like for any mission-critical solution comprising many elements, redundancy and business continuity need to be architected.

Migrating Workflows and Data

Over the years, organizations have implemented workflows defining how to handle customer interactions in different applications, IVR, automatic call distributors, call routing, and digital channel management applications. They will need to migrate these as well. It is the opportunity to remove intricacies and better the customer experience through deeper personalization. For large enterprises, this could literally mean hundreds of workflows, each programmed using the specific logic of their supporting application. It becomes hard to configure the new cloud system starting from a blank sheet of paper; organizations require some form of translation.

Moreover, the cloud migration of a CRM system or a major customer experience initiative trigger more than half of cloud transitions. These projects induce changes that must be incorporated within the contact center. Eventually, contact centers include a wealth of configuration details and produce a lot of data that needs to be carried forward. Preserving data is critical for any artificial intelligence (AI) project. It is often a driver for consolidating analytics in a data warehouse or data lake.

This article was originally published on NoJitter
.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/5-recommendations-to-make-work-from-home-contact-centers-more-effective/ Mon, 30 Mar 2020 16:10:06 +0000 https://servion.com/blog/?p=3543 5 Recommendations to make Work from Home Contact Centers more Effective Over the last weeks, the most urgent task has been to enable contact center agents to work at home. While not everyone is set up properly yet, most organizations are operational in this new model. They had to jump through hoops, of technical and […]

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]]> 5 Recommendations to make Work from Home Contact Centers more Effective

Over the last weeks, the most urgent task has been to enable contact center agents to work at home. While not everyone is set up properly yet, most organizations are operational in this new model. They had to jump through hoops, of technical and commercial nature. For example, in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) world it is very common to set security practices which are impossible to meet in a work at home environment.

Now that agents are taking calls in the new environment, contact centers managers and supervisors need to adapt and consider what to do next.

First and foremost, communicate. Work in contact centers is very demanding, and the agent-supervisor relationship is critical. Whether it is a beginning of shift briefing or in-shift interaction, supervisors find themselves unable to see and feel what is happening other than by looking at their laptop; agents themselves are deprived of familiar cues such as wallboards or the humming background noise that some feel energizing.

Recommendation #1:

Deploy messaging and videoconferencing tools so that the agent- supervisor relationship stays strong.

Supervisors need to engage with agents even more: practice silent monitoring more often, let agents know they have support, and continue to barge in to help with customer challenges, and generally follow best practices for managing teams working from home.

Also, because the home environment is less controlled, quality monitoring becomes more important too. Pay attention to background noise or disturbances, watch agent performance or behavior changes and understand who needs most help and coaching.

Recommendation #2:

Focus on supervisor engagement and quality monitoring.

Once this is done, more subtle aspects need consideration, such as workforce management: in theory, agents should have more time and flexibility, if only because they do not have to commute anymore, so more scheduling options become available. This creates opportunities for absorbing more call volumes and smoothing out service levels.

An issue that agents face is daycare. Even in dual income families, the inability to access daycare is forcing parents to take shifts off work. More than ever agents need shift flexibility and robust workforce management is vital.

Recommendation #3:

Consider making changes to the IVR and website to encourage customers to call when more agents are available and extend operating hours.

Once the operation is running and adjustments made, longer-term questions need to be addressed, such as:

• Should more aggressive call deflection strategies be developed and implemented?
• Should digital channels be reinforced?
• Should work at home become the norm?
• Should risk management and continuity plans be reconsidered?

Technology can help solve many of these challenges that are embedded in these questions. How to leverage virtual assistants, cloud, analytics and experience management solutions to improve the operation must be considered.

Recommendation #4:

Ask “what if we were starting from scratch, what would we do?”, understand the art of the possible.

At this juncture, a lot of transformation has already taken place. Not only work at home is in effect and optimized, but a strategy has also emerged, and now is the time to implement and monitor. This means new metrics and KPIs, and a new engagement between contact centers and line of business stakeholders. Ultimately, a crucial predictor of success is how contact center operations and technology enable new business initiatives for growth. The earlier the business involvement, the better.

Asking the business to think about the future is a challenge as of this writing end of March 2020, as every executive is considering the impact of the downturn and all the attention is on short term matters, primarily revenue, cost, and cash flow.

But if call volumes are high, just assigning more agents might not be the solution, and tactical changes might be considered, with a broader picture in mind.

Recommendation #5:

Pragmatically start taking further steps in crafting your future customer experience.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/focusing-on-customer-experience/ https://servion.com/blog/focusing-on-customer-experience/#comments Mon, 06 May 2019 07:31:56 +0000 https://servion.com/blog/?p=3461 Focusing on Customer Experience helps Brands Function Better Guest Blog by Kartikay Sharma, CX Manager from Adobe Systems Quite often, we see that a new brand comes up in the market and captures a sizeable chunk of it. The sole reason why this happens is because of the brand philosophy to adopt customer-first thinking while […]

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]]>
Focusing on Customer Experience helps Brands Function Better

Guest Blog by Kartikay Sharma, CX Manager from Adobe Systems

Quite often, we see that a new brand comes up in the market and captures a sizeable chunk of it. The sole reason why this happens is because of the brand philosophy to adopt customer-first thinking while finalizing policies/products. Many times, these new brands are brain children of people who were once a part of large companies but along the way, they had felt their vision has changed from that of the organization.

When Apple took the world by storm in 2007, they believed in putting the power in the hands of end users. It was something nobody had done before in their industry. The introduction of the iPhone was the beginning of a new era, and it has been widely observed that this was also the end of traditional black and white devices. Some mobile giants stuck to their own design philosophies instead of going back to the market, studying the requirements of customers and upgrading the design/ideology accordingly. This led to their disappearance from the market.

If you could describe the brand Volvo in one word – that’s safety. In fact, their mission is to make people’s live easier, safer and better. From the early 1960’s, they have always put safety first in every innovation. Their obsession with it has grown and has successfully made them a thought leader in this automobile industry. This is why their core values revolve around people because they believe that only if you listen, understand, focus and talk to your customers, can you deliver on their promises and reach high levels of trust.

If you are window shopping, you are just browsing through the options to check out what’s on sale, etc. Do you always end up not buying something? No, right? However, if you go to a store to buy a T-Shirt, and there’s no one there to help you, would you still go through with the purchase? That’s where the brand has failed in providing you with the right customer experience. If the sales reps had put themselves in your shoes, they may have known that you needed their assistance. Since they didn’t, they lost you as a customer.

A wonderful example of how it should be done can be found in the Hollywood flick – The Intern. In the movie, Anne Hathaway orders a product from her own company to check on the quality of packaging and delivery. She ends up being disappointed because the packaging was all messed up. She acted as a customer, connected as a customer and then responded as a customer. As a CEO, she unearthed valuable insights about her customers’ possible painpoints.

This is why brands should understand where they stand from the perspective of customers.

I have tried this with my own team too. I played the role of a customer and called into my brand support line to understand the type of experience the average customer receives. While I was more than happy with the way they responded, it made me feel as though I understood my customer a little better.

There are many such examples to explain how important of a role customer experience plays in defining the growth of a brand.

A great product can go a long way to win over customers, but the service you provide after the purchase – that’s where loyalty can be built. Today’s customers are keener to shell out their hard-earned money for great experiences than for the product features. It’s also a myth that customer experience starts only after the end user faces an issue.

Customer experience begins the moment the customer has a need that you can fulfill.

About the Author


Kartikay Sharma is a customer experience enthusiast with over 10 years of experience in the service industry. He currently works as a CX Manager at Adobe Systems. He is also an avid travel and photography enthusiast during his free time. Visit his profile here.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/focusing-on-customer-experience/feed/ 1 https://servion.com/blog/role-of-good-customer-experience-guest-blog/ Thu, 25 Apr 2019 09:48:15 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=3303 The Role of Good Customer Experience in Coworking Spaces Guest Blog by Ravindra M.K, Founder of BHIVE Workspace Customer Experience is very important in a customer facing business like Coworking Spaces.  Co-working is not a pure Real Estate play as it involves a lot of other aspects too like Hospitality, Community, Experience & Technology. It […]

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The Role of Good Customer Experience in Coworking Spaces
Guest Blog by Ravindra M.K, Founder of BHIVE Workspace


Customer Experience is very important in a customer facing business like Coworking Spaces.  Co-working is not a pure Real Estate play as it involves a lot of other aspects too like Hospitality, Community, Experience & Technology. It is growing rapidly with ever-changing customer demands. Therefore, in such a fast-growing industry, delivering good customer experience becomes a challenge if processes & innovations are not followed.


BHIVE Workspace: Our CX Story

At BHIVE Workspace, we take extra care in serving all kinds of customers (Corporates, Startups, SMEs & Freelancers) by being a customer-centric organization. As per BHIVE’s mission statement, ” We strive to be the go-to ‘partner of choice’ for customers by offering best-in-class customer experience, value for money, tailor-made solutions and the best selection”.

Below are a few pointers which we believe helps us in delivering good customer experience and customer delight:

Feedback systems & Update actions taken 
We regularly take feedback from our members, visitors & prospects directly or indirectly using different mediums. We also administer the Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey to gauge the loyalty of our coworking customers across all levels of the organization. The reviews, ratings, and inputs given are diligently reviewed by the management and relevant actions are taken to improvise the overall experience. Also, the actions & solutions undertaken are updated to all stakeholders so that our customers are happy that their issues and suggestions were heard & acted upon.

Trusted Advisor approach

All our Coworking departments are trained and advised to be trusted advisors to our customers, vendors, and partners. A salesperson gains confidence in the lead during the prospect stage only when they advise them keeping in mind customer’s preferences and benefits. As a result, customers get enough trust and confidence in becoming BHIVE’s valuable customer for long term building a long-lasting relationship. By being transparent and professional in all our dealings we strive to be trusted advisors to all our coworking customers which helps us in keeping them happy and also getting good customer references making our business more scalable.

Good Listeners providing Quick Responses

In a real business like ours, we need to be good listeners and provide quick responses on-call / chat / conversation. Staff carefully listens to customer needs, assimilate the requirements and commits to what is possible within their framework & then deliverables them as per their committed timelines & standards resulting in customer delight. In this whole transaction, positive Body language holds the key while interacting with members & guests resulting in pleasant customer experience.

Solution oriented Mindset
All our team members are friendly and customer focused resulting in better customer experience. Even our Housekeeping and Security are trained to follow our processes in dealing with issues and delivering better solutions resulting in building customer confidence and trust in getting their issues solved by BHIVE representatives (across departments & hierarchy). We all follow the principle of 5 W’s (Who, What, When, Where, Why) to go to the root of the problem and to find a long term solution.

Dealing with Challenges and Diversity 
As each problem has no fixed solution in our business, we use scenario-based training to guide how to deal with different kinds of customers and scenarios. We also guide them on how to deal with different nationalists, culture, traditions, and genders with usages of videos and online training. We enable our staff to think logically to deal with all kinds of scenarios which includes a variety of customers – B2C / B2B / Freelancers / Individuals/ Guests.


Award and Recognition
We regularly recognize and award good performers & highlight their contributions to all internal & external stakeholders. Only a happy workforce strives towards achieving customer delight.

To Conclude

BHIVE, being a leading player in Coworking space, we are passionate about delivering a best-in-class customer experience which is also our core value. We have built our products & services keeping in mind Hospitality service standards. We believe that few of the pointers highlighted above helps us in excelling in good customer experience resulting in good ratings, repeat and reference customers/partners/landlords.

About the Author

Ravindra M.K is the co-founder of BHIVE Workspace. He is a senior management professional with over 13 years of experience, a thought leader and an influencer. Visit his profile on LinkedIn. 

The post The Role of Good Customer Experience in Coworking Spaces appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> https://servion.com/blog/engineering-digital-transformations/ Wed, 24 Apr 2019 11:16:01 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=3314 It’s the 21st century. We are inching towards the year 2020. But you may be wondering why that’s a special thing? Many organizations whether private, public or government-owned have always had a vision for the year 2020 and digital transformation is one of the main priorities. With 2020 just about eight months away, how does […]

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]]> It’s the 21^st century. We are inching towards the year 2020. But you may be wondering why that’s a special thing? Many organizations whether private, public or government-owned have always had a vision for the year 2020 and digital transformation is one of the main priorities. With 2020 just about eight months away, how does one engineer those digital transitions in a methodical and well-orchestrated way for products and platforms?

Even though 87% of companies believe digital will disrupt their industry, only 44% are adequately prepared for projected disruption due to digital trends. – Deloitte

But why go digital?

Even though digital transformation is one of the most commonly used jargons in the IT industry, behind all the hype, it is actually disrupting traditional processes and helping promote better business culture. In fact, it has become the focal point of activities and business models with the need for higher and improved productivity. What once included tons of paperwork, travel, communication, data entry and manual labor, is now supported by applications, software, and channels that can be digitally managed and automated.

Digital business transformation includes engineering, retooling, connecting and sustaining products and platforms. By connecting all things digital from start to finish through cloud, analytics, AI, RPA, machine learning, it can deliver memorable and outstanding product experiences.

Barriers to Digital Transformation


The path to digital transformation is on every enterprise owner’s mind when competing in the rapidly growing economy. But most often, there are some factors that hinder this crossover.

Uncertain starting points for higher ROI: Many enterprises do not always have one single owner for applications and are unaware of what the application portfolio contains, the costs and risks of migrating them to the cloud and its dependence on other solutions.

Poor knowledge on existing systems: With digital transformation the primary and highest concern, the need to get the bandwagon means building the basic application quickly while taking care of iterations and validations along the way. This breakneck speed of work can cause causes a breakout due to the lack of a structured transformation methodology.

Lack of talent: Enterprises and vendors are on a short supply of employees with the right skills that can transform applications. They require developers, software architects, user advocates, and researchers to constantly churn out migration plans for transformation.

With digital continuity being the competing factor for many organizations today, it’s important to understand what your customers want and deliver it to them in time since many depend on digital solutions for their day-to-day operations. Here are the top three drivers of digital transformation:

• Improved Customer Experience
• Increased Speed of Innovation
• Improved Time-to-Market

The best approach for engineering digital transformation: Align organizational goals with customer journey expectations. This means it is crucial to capitalize on the right opportunities for innovation while navigating through hurdles across the product lifecycle.

27% of senior executives consider digital transformation a matter of survival. While 87% of companies think that digital transformation is a competitive opportunity. – Capgemini

Will digital transformation mean getting rid of legacy systems?

Being digitally equipped and ready for the future is a need that every enterprise leader is looking for. But that doesn’t mean they can get rid of their existing infrastructure investments. In fact, Gartner predicts that 90% of the current applications can be used until 2023. But according to the Global CIO Survey by Logicalis, 44% of CIOs are certain that complex legacy systems are the main barriers to digital transformation. Therefore, IT leaders are replacing their legacy systems with modern, cloud-based systems. This process of migration involves some pretty important changes to business culture and marks the foundation of business change.

The five-tier approach to end-to-end digital engineering transformations

In this fast-paced economy, there is a higher competitive advantage for enterprises who can deliver high-value software quickly. But this demand holds high standards when it delights users as well. That’s why enterprises need to look for vendors who can assure transformation at full length who continually learn, adjust and innovate with together. The five-tier approach includes:

• Set and assess the digital mindset: Businesses must be open to embrace digital solutions and technologies in their interactions and promote it across the varied levels of the enterprise. By having an open mind about the benefits that digital technologies can bring to people, processes, and businesses, it opens a new world of opportunities.
• Provide actionable data-rich insights: Having data with no insights is meaningless. You need the right tools to analyze and interpret it. With a strong objective in place and actionable insights to back it up, it gives enterprise leaders the chance to modify or recognize newer paths to digital transformation
• Ensure interoperability and collaboration: To engineer successful digital transformation, enterprises need to invest in technologies that tie in the capabilities of engaging relationships, serve the purposes of different departments, and guarantee smooth day-to-day operations. This blend between physical and digital will define what the business strategy is based on.
• Create digital-first roadmaps across product lifecycle: Having a comprehensive and flexible roadmap that highlights digital initiatives is the key to achieving an enterprise’s goal. By aligning it to the product lifecycle, it provides a blueprint for action and enables stakeholders to adapt and redesign the outcome that negotiates risks and delivers ROI.
• Drive memorable experiences across touch points: In the current era, digital transformation isn’t restricted to only one mode of communication. With customers having access to a ton of new mediums, it is crucial to address all touchpoints with the same objective – to deliver superior experiences.

Will digital transformation ever stop?

It won’t. It isn’t a discrete project that can be shelved after successful completion. Digital transformation is a journey and not a destination. It involves the delivery of value to both the enterprise and customer in modern ways. But the demand for it will keep changing based on expectations. So buckle up and get on the train of transformation before it leaves you behind.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/when-martech-meets-real-time-customer-experience/ Wed, 27 Mar 2019 12:28:39 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=3288 Last week Servion and Selligent announced a strategic partnership, the first of its kind between a customer experience company and a marketing automation company. Let me tell you why we did it and what it means. The ‘why’ stems from the realization that historically these two domains have been distinct in their approach, buying centers, […]

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]]> Last week Servion and Selligent announced a strategic partnership, the first of its kind between a customer experience company and a marketing automation company. Let me tell you why we did it and what it means.

The ‘why’ stems from the realization that historically these two domains have been distinct in their approach, buying centers, technology and features. This has led to companies not extracting the full potential of either type of solutions and missing out on the opportunity to build a 360-degree view of the customer. By this, I mean knowing everything about the customer, all the time, integrating the touch points, and making the right decision on what to do.

The massively data-driven world of marketing automation revolves around email personalization and deliverability, website personalization and tracking, mobile messaging, 1-1 print, social outreach and targeting.

The world of customer experience revolves around real-time channel management, whether voice or digital, next best action determination, customer service agent support and productivity, and analytics generated from these interactions.

Combining both provides two major benefits that are impossible to reach if these solutions are not integrated: continuity of action, and consistency of customer journey data. Continuity of action, in its simplest form, is that a contact center agent on a campaign call should have full knowledge of who the customer is, and what he has received in print or visited on the website; then the agent can use the most appropriate script. Quite often, the agent should use more than one channel to reach the customer. It is common to use SMS and voice as part of the same campaign, and real-time orchestration of both is necessary.

Continuity of action and consistency of customer journey data enable better up-sells, cross-sells, proactive communications, call deflection. It means a better experience for customers and more productivity and business for enterprises.

Great advances in innovation often come from the convergence of two domains previously thought of as unrelated. By integrating the capabilities of Selligent and Servion, we are now offering a unique solution, bridging marketing automation and real-time customer experience.

Enterprises are taking a cohesive view of their digital transformation and now can implement these formerly elusive 360-degree customer views and next best action paradigms.

The post When Martech Meets Real-Time Customer Experience appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> https://servion.com/blog/servion-global-solutions-appoints-laurent-philonenko-as-new-chief-executive-officer/ Thu, 21 Feb 2019 06:32:24 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=3251 We are excited to announce that Laurent Philonenko has been appointed as its new CEO and Board Member. Based out of San Francisco, Laurent will lead the company through its transformative phase amidst the rapidly changing business landscape. Laurent brings with him over 30 years of experience, with a proven track record of serving successful […]

The post Laurent Philonenko Joins Us As Chief Executive Officer appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> We are excited to announce that Laurent Philonenko has been appointed as its new CEO and Board Member. Based out of San Francisco, Laurent will lead the company through its transformative phase amidst the rapidly changing business landscape.

Laurent brings with him over 30 years of experience, with a proven track record of serving successful leadership roles with some of the biggest names in the industry – including Cisco, Avaya, and Genesys.

Prior to joining Servion, Laurent was the Senior Vice President of Innovation at Avaya, where he led the development and incubation of disruptive innovations such as artificial intelligence, mobility, and security. In his previous roles, he has held executive leadership positions as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Collaboration Technology Group at Cisco Systems and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Genesys.

“Laurent is incredibly well-positioned to take the helm of Servion, given his experience, skills and inclusive leadership style. The Board and I have extreme confidence in his acumen and ability to scale our businesses, strengthen our operational cadence and cement our position in the industry as a customer experience pioneer,” said Puneet Pushkarna, Chairman of the Board.

“I am excited to join Servion at this pivotal point in the company’s history. I’m extremely impressed by the Servion teamwork, focus, and customer first mentality which has globally impacted the customer experience space. I look forward to further cementing Servion’s place as a worldwide pioneer in customer experience and evolving the brand to be synonymous with excellence and innovation.”
Laurent Philonenko

Laurent is a graduate of École Polytechnique in Paris and has a Master of Management Science degree from Paris University.

Join us in welcoming Laurent and wishing him the best.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/a-spoonful-of-customer-love-to-make-your-e-commerce-brand-a-lot-sweeter/ Thu, 14 Feb 2019 12:11:51 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=3232 When was the last time someone surprised you? It may have been a random gift that your best buddy gave you. Maybe even a surprise birthday or anniversary party. Gestures like these put a big smile on your face since you don’t expect it to happen every day. Come the month of February, it’s hard […]

The post A Spoonful Of Customer Love To Make Your E-Commerce Brand A Lot Sweeter appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> When was the last time someone surprised you? It may have been a random gift that your best buddy gave you. Maybe even a surprise birthday or anniversary party. Gestures like these put a big smile on your face since you don’t expect it to happen every day.

Come the month of February, it’s hard to ignore the buzz around Valentine’s Day. With every brand running campaigns, it’s also a chance for them to connect with their customers since love is a universal topic.

However, let’s not forget that it’s important to show your customers how much you love them not just today – but every day. That’s why customer delight is critical.

With digitalization, brands are constantly competing for digital mind-space. Owing to this, the e-commerce industry is thriving as many prefer making transactions through digital wallets or other payment methods. This is also another reason why supporting industries are also working hard to create and deliver a seamless experience across channels.

But how does customer delight fit in the CX puzzle that e-commerce players are working towards?

“89% of companies compete primarily on customer experience today”
Gartner

E-commerce giants who have their fair share of digital-savvy customers often practice customer delight with a surprise factor. Some of the common answers to delivering a consistent experience include:

• 24X7 support on phone lines
• Web cookies (to track site movement) to display ads
• Emails on deals of the day or week
• Web / video chat

But when innovation and creativity bring a personalized touch to interactions, customers are happier. These can comprise of:

a) Personalized emails: A simple addition of having the customer’s name in an email adds a little bit of magic. This along with deals based on web searches add value to the emails.

b) Website pop-ups: Similar to the web cookies, most e-commerce players use it to resell the customer’s frequently used products or cross-sell ideal matches to items in the shopping cart.

c) Predictive phone interactions: When an agent greets you and also predicts the reason for your call, you wouldn’t mind calling the contact center to rectify your issues. This reduces the strain that customers face when trying to explain the problem. For example, an issue regarding billing or late delivery are triggers for calls to agents.


How to deliver an intuitive and personalized CXWatch Video

 

d) Verified list of sellers: For high loyalty customers, brands could share a list of verified sellers based on their frequently purchased items. This ensures timely delivery and a good quality product.

e) Purchase reminders: Every e-commerce company has a database of the purchases by every customer, with some of them being repeat purchases in a period of 30 or 90 days. To maximize purchases, they could send reminders via email about buying the product.

f) Personalized deals via SMS/emails: Oftentimes customers wish to buy things but they are out of stock. Their instant action would be to add it to their wish-list. With this data, brands could send out offers or notify them when items are back in stock.

g) Early bird offers: During Thanksgiving, Christmas, or End of Season sales, customers go gaga on the list of items that are put on sale. To give them an advantage, loyalists could be an all access offer a few hours prior to the start of the sale.

h) Easy return/refund process: Products in transit from the seller may face quality tampering issues or sometimes may not be the right one. In situations like this, customers prefer to return their deliveries. An easy return/refund process can help manage interactions better and increase the speed of problem resolution.

i) Free/Negligible shipping costs and free returns: Free shipping costs, faster deliveries and free return on selected products are a few ways to improve the shopping experience.

Customer delight represents those little things that brands do to make your customers smile. Going above and beyond to create a memorable experience will likely make them loyal in the long run.

So, what are some tips and tricks that you have to delight your customers? Share them with us!

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/6-ways-cloud-contact-centers-improve-agent-experience/ Fri, 08 Feb 2019 08:47:45 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=2075 The meaning of the word ‘cloud’ has changed over the last decade. It has become synonymous to storage, computing, technology, databases, analytics and so much more. With customers at the forefront and expecting information constantly, enterprises need to step up and migrate to a technology that can stay ahead of the complex competitive environment. That’s […]

The post Six Ways Cloud Contact Centers Can Improve Agent Experience appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> The meaning of the word ‘cloud’ has changed over the last decade. It has become synonymous to storage, computing, technology, databases, analytics and so much more. With customers at the forefront and expecting information constantly, enterprises need to step up and migrate to a technology that can stay ahead of the complex competitive environment. That’s why many enterprises are considering cloud services, particularly contact centers. In fact, cloud contact centers are changing the way enterprises communicate with their customers. Its low investment costs, and easy deployment enables effortless interactions via voice, email, chat or social media, anywhere and anytime.

While contact centers solely operate to ensure customers conversations are proactively and seamlessly managed, let’s not forget that they do not function without agents. Agents do a lot of the backend work, some of which include, toggling between multiple applications, thereby reducing their productivity overall.

Research shows that by focusing on performance, enterprises can excel in their business and guarantee satisfied agents. Therefore, these agents are empowered to solve customer problems quickly while providing a superior experience.

With cloud contact centers being the perfect platform to benefit both agents and customers, here are six ways by which they can also improve agent experience.

1. Enable agents to work remotely

Today’s workforce seeks flexibility in their work schedules and cloud-based contact centers give them the option to do that. With no hassles for enterprises to host information on servers, agents can work from virtually anywhere with easy access to information. This helps in delivering 24/7 customer service and often results in a happier and productive workforce.

 


2. Enhances omni-channel engagement

Contact centers offer omni-channel services to keep up with their customers across channels. By giving agents access to software and tools, it empowers them to meet customer needs at their level and time frame. Moreover, with customers interacting through their preferred channels, agents can address a larger percentage of issues from a single workstation.

3. Easy collaboration and on-demand customer data

Gone are the days of asking people or looking through multiple files for information. The cloud infrastructure has brought in an added and helpful feature of collaboration. This avoids multiple copies of the same file and helps teams work in unison on documents that are hosted on the cloud. Accessible from any device, customer service agents and technology teams can work together simultaneously to add or refer information.

 

ServCloud: Optimize operations, enhance customer experience Watch Video
 

4. A unified database with all customer information

Looking for data is easier with cloud contact centers. This centralized system stores customer information in one common space and reduces time otherwise spent on moving between multiple applications. With a unique dashboard, agents can get a comprehensive view giving them the opportunity to learn more about their customer’s history during interactions. This increases the chance of delivering a great experience.

5. Holistic integration to maximize agent efficiency

With the capability to handle multiple interactions across diverse channels from one place, agents resolve issues quickly and with great accuracy. Features like ACD, prioritized callback, and IVR save time and make call routing efficient.

6. Engage in performance and workforce management

Agents need to know how they are performing in order to keep improving. By monitoring call volumes and key performance metrics hold times, call abandonment rate, first call resolution, and customer satisfaction, they can identify gaps to give the right coaching and training to improve performance.

Being aware of these factors and using workforce management tools, allows managers to utilize the right agents for the right activity; while keeping into account their availability so issues don’t go unanswered and customers aren’t kept waiting.

With cloud contact centers aiming to solve the problems of agent experience and productivity, how soon are you going to invest in it? In case you need some more answers, read our blog on the factors to consider before migrating your contact center to the cloud.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/conversational-ai-taking-human-like-engagement-new-dimension/ Mon, 04 Feb 2019 09:32:23 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=3212 Over the last two weeks, we saw the #10yearchallenge go viral. It showcased evident changes in the appearances of people and nature. It even led to the creation of memes. This brings us to the question of the hour, what was technology like ten, maybe twenty years back? How did people communicate and how has […]

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]]> Over the last two weeks, we saw the #10yearchallenge go viral. It showcased evident changes in the appearances of people and nature. It even led to the creation of memes. This brings us to the question of the hour, what was technology like ten, maybe twenty years back? How did people communicate and how has it changed over time? From signals, knobs and dials, clicks and taps, swipes and gestures, to voice and emotion, communication is evolving. Thanks to Conversational AI, enterprises that once echoed the thoughts of a digital-first approach are now moving to a human-first approach. Using devices like the Amazon Echo and the Google Home, it is bridging the gap of natural communication between human and machine.

What is Conversational AI?

A sub-field of artificial intelligence, it is a set of technology that focuses on simulating natural and seamless conversations between humans and computers. Even though it’s still at the infancy period, it has garnered attention because of its engagement capabilities and the speed at which it interacts. After all, it’s easier for us to talk than to type.

Driven by Natural Language Processing (NLP), it supports two-way interactions with individual customers on a large scale. It creates personalized experiences and automates interactions by using a combination of messaging apps, voice assistants, and chatbots.

“By 2020, 85% of customers will manage their relationship with a company without actually interacting with a human being”
Gartner

Moving from commands to conversations

“Alexa, play me the soundtrack of Star Wars”

Gone are the days where you sit in front of your computer, go through a series of menus, or click your mouse many times, to search for the track you want to listen to. With the power of our voice, Conversational AI has made engagements interactional and natural. It requires no training because technology has grown to understand our emotionally complex conversations. In fact, it enables the computer to think like a human and not as a bot. By categorizing speech into four buckets 1) context 2) engagement 3) tone and 4) memory, Conversational AI can leverage machine learning, real-time analytics, and NLP to give customers a personalized yet human-like experience.

Can Conversational AI increase your competitive edge?

Customer engagement is crucial for an enterprise’s success. But with alternating expectations, speed and convenience are beginning to trump price and brand. Though automation was the first choice because it was better cost-wise, Conversational AI solves this problem at scale. It allows customers to ask for what they want, when they want, thus enabling enterprises to learn about them through every transaction.


• Adapts to user’s pace and knowledge

The power of Conversational AI interfaces helps us get answers instantly. During these interactions, users reveal a majority of information – preferences, opinions, choices, and much more. This can be fed back into the conversation to grasp contexts in the future and fuel more engagements through hyper-personalized recommendations.

• Ensure engagement is on point, always

Conversational AI interfaces eliminate the challenge of interacting with enterprises through digital channels. With its fast and convenient, 24/7, 365 approach, you can get consistent and relevant answers with hardly any effort, regardless of how the question is phrased. Its intelligence is capable of sustaining conversations. It can also reflect the tone of your brand, through its ability to understand the context along with a deep understanding of language.

• Keep conversations on track

As humans, we have the tendency to wander into multiple topics of conversation. There’s always the potential for users to multi-task, change decisions, or even get interrupted. To overcome this, the interface must be able to support these while engaging in conversation, thereby delivering a complete experience for the user through a single bot. For example, Swiggy, the digital bartender by Accenture, indulges in small talk while preparing your drink.

“Conversational AI is the force behind a growing $2.68 billion industry that’s projected to reach over $11 billion by 2023”

Though customers are the primary beneficiaries of the changes in technology, enterprises are not far behind. Every change is accounted to be a win-win situation and Conversational AI is deemed to be that inflection point.

Simply put, the AI in Conversational AI is what gives it the intelligence to communicate like a human being. While this is an investment that many enterprises are deep-diving into, it’s important for companies to consider the following aspects before launching their Conversational AI strategy to the market.

• Can it talk, text, or chat?
• Can it learn from the history of data available?
• Can it understand the complexities of human speech and emotion?
• Can it identify the customer?
• Can it make transactions on behalf of the customer?

So in the next ten years, will Conversational AI emerge as the front-runner of all technology?

• How AI and chatbots can transform you customer experience?

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/patient-experience-new-norm-healthcare/ Fri, 25 Jan 2019 00:10:56 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=423 Earlier in the healthcare industry, the doctor was the main custodian of the patient experience. Over the past decade, it has seen many changes. The power is shifting to the service ecosystem, and technology is playing a key role. However, the approach to medical treatment and service differs in each country. Whether publicly governed or privately […]

The post Why Patient Experience Is The New Norm In The Healthcare Industry appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> Earlier in the healthcare industry, the doctor was the main custodian of the patient experience. Over the past decade, it has seen many changes. The power is shifting to the service ecosystem, and technology is playing a key role. However, the approach to medical treatment and service differs in each country. Whether publicly governed or privately owned, healthcare institutions have just begun to address patient experience.

The Beryl Institute in Texas defines patient experience as “the sum of all interactions, shaped by an organization’s culture, that influence perceptions across the continuum of care”. According to a study conducted by HealthLeader Media, 84% of healthcare leaders rank patient experience among their top three priorities, but more than half have not made those specific investments.

Unlike customer experience, patient experience hasn’t been an investment option. Similar to a buyer-seller relationship, what makes it any different from your recent retail customer experience? To ensure you stay on track, here are a few tips to help guide you through to delivering superior patient experiences.

 

How to deliver omni-channel customer experience | ServionWatch Video
 

Understand every patient’s experience

As patient experience comprises any contact from primary to critical care, it is crucial for hospitals to recognize their immediate needs before proceeding further with any treatment. Patients always remember how they were treated compared to what is said or done. This personalized touch lets them know they are in safe hands and create lasting memories that stay with them.

Seek the voice of the customer

Working towards great patient experience is only half the battle. The other half includes collecting feedback and proactively using it improvement and development. The response garnered through face-to-face meetings or digital channels, be it text messages or email, is imperative to understand the patient’s perspective. It can help you recognize what you are doing right and what you are not. For example, some healthcare giants use toll-free calls and free-text features to receive both specific and generic feedback as a platform to build trust and loyalty with patients.

Automate appointment reminders

Given our busy lifestyles, there are chances of us forgetting to attend meetings, maybe even doctor’s appointments. To avoid this, healthcare providers have now begun to automate phone calls, text messages, and email reminders. These convenient methods help patients follow upcoming visits to the specialists.

 

 

Send documents through a secure online portal

As technology plays a big role, some healthcare organizations have already embraced the use of online portals to store patient information and data. They use it for storing test results, doctors’ notes, or other patient file contents in a user-friendly but secure way.

This gives patients the ability to get copies of their medical records – without any help. According to research by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), facilitating ongoing communication between patients and physicians either via an app or online portal can improve engagement rates by 60% or higher.

Humanize patient engagement

Like any brand-customer interaction, patients want to be involved in their healthcare needs. It is important to maintain continuous engagement. Train your staff to give them a pleasant experience, irrespective of their role. Simple tricks like talking to them and checking on their progress can make a huge difference.

Providers can also create email lists to circulate social media posts or monthly newsletters (including news and information relevant to their care). This encourages them to come back for therapy services but also keep them informed of their progress post discharge.

 

Time for some patient driven change | Marc Levitt | TEDxColumbusWatch Video
 

Set a standard for healthcare outside the industry

For healthcare institutions to remain relevant, it is no longer required of them to compare themselves in their circles of health and wellness alone. In the age of patient experience, every interaction is treated as a unique and important puzzle piece, in an otherwise data-centric and digital world.

Healthcare customers are brand ambassadors when they enter the hospital. If the service is set low, (be it like a financial institution that suddenly has too much to offer) then expectations and results, will reflect in a similar manner. This obstacle course is something that only pursuing and developing patient experience can fix.

 
“The physician should not treat the disease but the patient who is suffering from it”
 

Patient experience, now, has become an important factor and a matter of choice among hospitals to decide their course of action. While steps to improve engagement can inherently help boost the value patients feel, it is necessary to stay competitive. Therefore, plan the patient journey, leverage technology, and encourage patients to access professional care when they need it.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/factors-migrating-contact-center-cloud/ Fri, 11 Jan 2019 02:05:28 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=700 Globally, businesses – irrespective of the domain – are becoming increasingly aware of the advantages of cloud contact centers. It is more difficult than ever before to ignore the proven use cases of higher scalability, increased operational efficiency and improved customer experience – all from smaller investments. Whether private, public, hybrid or a mix of […]

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]]> Globally, businesses – irrespective of the domain – are becoming increasingly aware of the advantages of cloud contact centers. It is more difficult than ever before to ignore the proven use cases of higher scalability, increased operational efficiency and improved customer experience – all from smaller investments. Whether private, public, hybrid or a mix of various models – cloud adoption is seeing a steady rise.

Unfortunately, some businesses are jumping on the bandwagon in fear that they may lose their competitive differentiation without riding its coattails. They are reactively taking hasty decisions in the hope that it somehow leads their contact centers to be more efficient and profitable than ever before.

With cloud technology, it is pertinent that you do not get swept away by the hype and forsake all the critical questions you need to ask yourself as a future-ready business. Otherwise, you may end up investing in a fork in the road – without being sure about which direction it may lead your contact center to.

Often, the migration process of moving to the cloud is bereft with challenges – both predictable and unseen. From insufficient security planning to interoperability issues and obsolete technologies, there are many risks involved. In order to successfully navigate your contact center around them and maximize the true potential of cloud computing, your roadmap must be filled with checkpoints that need your attention.

First, always start with the why

Before you decide to take your contact center to the cloud, start with asking yourself – Why should you move to the cloud, and what are the type of problems that you are trying to resolve through it? It is a lot more complex and nuanced than merely changing a set of assets from your premises to another – without losing ownership. Instead, it is an opportunity to transform the business behind your contact center operations. However, if you try to replicate what you have been doing for years into the disruptive cloud technology – you may be throwing away a trampoline in favor of a wooden stool!

Among others, these are some of the reasons to move to the cloud:

• Find a newer and more future-proof service ecosystem
• Revamp existing IT and operational strategy to focus on growth strategies
• Shift the risks to external vendors
• Solve traditional problems associated with the current system
• Gain access to continuous innovation
• Get a detailed view of costs, and efficiently allocate them

It is best that you use your own primary objective to identify the right cloud solution or the best-fit vendor.

Determine the how: Key success factors for cloud migration

Your contact center is the battleground of customer experience through well-defined KPIs that evaluate agent performance and accurate channel data that directs you on how and when your customers want your service. Therefore, it is important to maintain the continuity in the processes that govern them on the cloud.

The key areas to focus are:

• Application migration
• Roles and responsibilities of vendor and your team on managing key KPIs
• How can you manage the transition with multiple technologies
• Date migration – do not lose the rich, powerful data of legacy systems

Change the culture

The biggest challenge in cloud adoption is often the change management. First, your people and your processes must be accepting of the change before your technologies are ready to integrate it. Migration to the cloud requires a shift in decision-making culture; as much as infra-migration. You need to help your organization through this change. So, prep the IT/business teams to a ‘new’ way of doing things, and give people the room to adopt since some have to give up traditionally-held controls.

Choose the right partner

The initial movement to the cloud is closer to a one-way street than you may think. Once you get on this road, you need to diligently travel for a period of time. Hence, choosing the right partner is critical. A partner with the data center, license, and infrastructure is not necessarily the chosen one to handle your complex cloud needs. Infrastructure, in fact, is the easiest part. You must strive to look for a partner with applications and diverse integration capabilities along with the capacity to handle multiple technologies. More than a pure play cloud player, you require someone who understands your KPI needs and the way your business works in the real world.

There are a multitude of reasons to migrate to the cloud – agility, flexibility, cost efficiency, better performance and digital transformation. As evidenced, migrating to the cloud comes with its own set of challenges. That is why it is important for you to have a nuanced view on all the pieces involved in it. Without a holistic understanding of why you want to move your contact center to the cloud, you might end up puzzled after it.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/four-critical-contact-center-kpis/ Fri, 04 Jan 2019 03:59:26 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=558 It’s 2019, and companies are no longer competing on products or pricing but on the type of experience they are delivering across customer journeys. Raise your hand, if you have ever paid a premium for a better experience. You are not alone, according to a Customer Experience Impact report by Harris Interactive/RightNow, because almost 9 […]

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]]> It’s 2019, and companies are no longer competing on products or pricing but on the type of experience they are delivering across customer journeys. Raise your hand, if you have ever paid a premium for a better experience. You are not alone, according to a Customer Experience Impact report by Harris Interactive/RightNow, because almost 9 out of 10 U.S. customers say they would pay more to ensure a superior customer experience*. When you truly enjoy the experience, you gladly reward the brand with your loyalty and soon, you begin expecting the same experience from others as well.

Delivering outstanding experiences has become critical. This responsibility comes down to contact centers because the current CX revolution has changed the way their performances are measured.

How are contact centers measured today?

There are multiple call center and  contact center KPIs by which they are measured on. Before we dwell into how they should be aligned to customer experience, let us first understand what the usual call center best practices include as their top 5 contact center KPIs:

1) Average Speed of Answer (ASA): Often referred to as Average Time to Answer (ATA), or ASA denotes the time that is taken by an agent to answer an inbound call. This KPI helps in measuring a customer’s wait time. The longer the customer is made to wait, the inferior is the customer experience.

2) First Call Resolution (FCR): FCR denotes the percentage of customers whose queries have been addressed in the first instance. A high FCR usually means that customers have been properly understood and their needs have been resolved there by avoiding multiple interactions on the same requirement.

3) Average Handling Time (AHT): AHT denotes the total time spent in a customer interaction and other related administrative processes. It usually starts at the point when the customer starts his interaction to the period when all documentation related to the call is completed. There is often a conflict between AHT and FCR.

4) Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): CSAT helps in measuring a customer’s overall satisfaction level with an interaction or a service that was provided and usually measured using a form. Many contact centers consider this as the most critical measure of the quality of services offered by them.

5) Net Promote Score (NPS): NPS was originally developed by Fred Reichheld, Bain & Co. and Satmetrix and helps in measuring customer loyalty. Measured in a range of -100 to 100, it indicates a customer’s readiness to recommend a company to others.

Now that we’ve taken a look at 5 critical metrics and contact center KPIs , let’s now take a look at outcomes that are more critical than just KPIs.

Going beyond the contact center metrics to customer experience metrics:

When it comes to the contact center, you are what you measure. According to Forrester 73% of companies say improving customer experience is a priority but only 1% of organizations deliver an excellent experience for their customer. This brings up a question if the above-mentioned contact center KPIs are the right contact center performance metrics?

To differentiate themselves, businesses depend on their contact center to deliver a tailored experience. And, to deliver such an experience, contact centers need to consider customer experience metrics in addition to traditional contact center metrics.

According to Gartner, to achieve successful outcomes in a voice-based customer management contact center, it is essential to align these five key metrics – Average Speed of Answer (ASA), First-Call (contact) Resolution (FCR), Average Handle Time (AHT), Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) and Net Promoter Score (NPS) — with intended goals and business outcomes, such as reducing cost or improving quality or service and customer experience.

Based on what we hear from our customers across the globe in the last 21 years, we believe contact centers need to raise above the standard contact center metrics and start measuring qualitative considerations as well. They need to start looking at the 4 new Ps of CX – Painless, Proactive, Personalized, and Predictive.

 
Zoom Image
 

1. Painless customer experience

Customers prefer dealing with businesses that make it easy for them. If a business wants to deliver a superior customer experience, then they have to start aligning to the customer’s view of things. And that starts with reducing Customer effort. Traditional metrics such as Net Promoter Score (NPS) or Customer Satisfaction score (CSAT) do an imperfect job when it comes to measuring customer effort, therefore they need to start measuring Customer Effort Score (CES).

How many times was a customer transferred? How many times did he or she have to repeat the same information? How many times did he or she have to switch channels? These are real things that should be accurately measured and what gets measured gets done. It’s all about doing a set of actions, repeatedly, keeping in mind the customer’s view. Customer Effort Score is a good contact center KPIs to measure an effortless customer experience. It is a simple way to find out how much effort your customer has to put in before they achieve the desired results. One of the ways you can measure your customer effort score is through a customer feedback process immediately after an interaction.

 
“The biggest cause of excessive customer effort: needing to call back. 22% of repeat calls involve downstream issues related to the problem that prompted the original call, even if the problem itself was adequately addressed the first time around”
Harvard Business Review Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers
 

2. Proactive customer experience

Your ability to simply react to a customer interaction is no longer enough. While First Call Resolutions (FCR) are important, what is important is to ensure a Full Resolution. According to the above HBR report, 22% of repeat calls involve downstream issues related to problems that prompted the original call, even if the problem itself was adequately addressed the first time around.

One of the new metrics that savvy contact centers have started adopting is , Next Issue Avoidance (NIA). NIA has now become the new gold standard to measure performance. Simply focusing on First Call Resolution prevents a full resolution that takes into account the inconvenience likely to happen. Customers now expect companies to respect their time, they want them to go beyond the explicitly stated issues, they want companies to recognize their implicit needs. If there is a likely delay, they want to be proactively notified about it. So it is vital that contact centers build their capability to anticipate customer needs, preempt a possible future contact on a related issue and solve it before it impacts the customer.

According to industry data Sears engages visitors who show a propensity for purchasing products, it reports a 20% lift in revenue by using proactive engagement, and it has a customer satisfaction score (CSAT) of 90%. “Proactive engagements anticipate the what, when, where, and how for customers and prioritize information and functionality to speed customer time-to-completion” says Forrester. Customer journey analytics can be used to proactively offer a method for issue avoidance.

 

 

3. Personalized customer experience

Customers pick brands because of what they feel about it. Customers like a brand or dislike it based on their personal experience and when it comes to customer service; they want you to know them, know what they want, when they want it and how they want it and deliver it in a time and manner that is convenient for them. Not all customers are same, and enterprises cannot take a one size fits all approach when it comes to giving them that ‘personal’ experience.

Generic service can lead to customer dissatisfaction and disloyalty while a subtle personalization can lead to a ‘moment of wow’. Delivering a personal experience is not easy, it is more than just getting the demographics right. Savvy customers are not often satisfied with basic personalization and expect the context of the interaction to be understood in advance. It is about delivering the right experience, to the right person, at the right time, in the right context.

 
“Whenever you see the opportunity to create a wow moment, act on it”
Shep Hyken
 

4. Predictive customer experience

Proactive customer care and predictive customer care are often used interchangeably. However, proactive denotes something that is qualitative and knowledge-based, while predictive refers to something that is quantitative and based on hard data points. Companies need to put to use transactional, behavioral data and advanced analytics to develop deep insights about customers.

Contact centers need to predict the customer’s interaction based on behavioral, transactional and interaction history and be proactive about servicing. Predicting the interaction intent accurately can help contact centers to retain an excellent customer experience even during spikes and surges. When done right, this will skyrocket your customer experience.

These 4Ps may not be and cannot be the only aspects a contact center should measure to improve customer experience. They are not the typical contact center metrics that are featured on contact center KPIs dashboards, but they are indeed the most important aspects of customer experience that future of businesses depend on.

Do you know of other contact center KPIs that measure customer experience success? Do share them!

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/will-2019-sing-the-blues-for-brick-and-mortar-experiences/ Fri, 21 Dec 2018 06:19:17 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=3109 The brick-and-mortar experience is the bread and butter of the retail world. But, not everyone likes sandwiches these days. Especially, younger generations who have emerged as gluten-free online shoppers. They seem to prefer to keep things digital. A click of the mouse, a tap of the button, a new window here, an OTP there – […]

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]]> The brick-and-mortar experience is the bread and butter of the retail world. But, not everyone likes sandwiches these days. Especially, younger generations who have emerged as gluten-free online shoppers. They seem to prefer to keep things digital. A click of the mouse, a tap of the button, a new window here, an OTP there – easy does it. The driving factor has not merely been a matter of convenience. The probability of better prices and the availability of choice throughout the purchasing cycle have played important roles too.

So, is the brick-and-mortar really on its last legs? Is some pop star from the 90s, when in-store experiences were hip and trendy, going to sing at its funeral? Well, that really depends on the type of information you are looking for. Try this out. Search for industry reports, news bytes and opinion pieces on how brick-and-mortar is dying. Once you are done, now use those Googling skills to corroborate the other side; how physical stores will never go out of style.

If you require a more hands-on perspective, look around before asking yourself a few questions.

How has your own shopping experience evolved over the last decade? Do you prefer a human touch during high-value purchases? Do you visit malls just to browse and confirm what you want to buy online? When was the last time you walked into a store to buy a book or a music album? Is Black Friday that day of the year you feel old because you can’t hit Alt + Tab quick enough?

“67% of millennials and 56% of Gen Xers prefer to shop online rather than in-stores”
Big Commerce

Three sides to every brick-and-mortar story

As a saying goes – “There are three sides to every story. Yours, mine and the truth.” In the case of the future of brick-and-mortar retail, the truth may be somewhere in the middle. The landscape of retail shopping has seen a dramatic shift in recent times. Emerging technologies and dynamic purchasing behaviors have been egging one another to redefine customer experience. From the front of physical stores to the backend of websites, enterprises have been clamoring to meet and scale rising expectations; not just set from customers, but industry leaders, as well.

Make no mistake of it, the e-commerce market has set the bar very high. It has helped in growing transactional interactions between brands and customers into personalized experiential relationships. Now, the physical retail world is playing catch-up. As you may already know, things are not rosy out there. Behemoths have fallen wayside, thanks to the influx of digital alternatives.

However, it is not all doom and gloom. Recent market reports indicate that brick-and-mortar retailers will see a year-over-year revenue, with some product categories set to gain a strong foot-holding. The trick is for them to avoid the plateauing of experiences that customers are likely to receive in their stores. Because modern customers are already aware of the seamless nature of digital experiences. They will not settle for anything less. Even while at the store, they expect an ongoing multi-channel brand journey instead of a direct one-off interaction.

Hence, modern enterprises must rely on emerging technologies such as Advanced Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, and IoT to unify their digital and physical presence.



Let data do the talking

With big data and analytics, along with in-store functionalities of mobile apps, there are opportunities for stores to become more interactive and personalized in the offline world. By assessing relevant datasets, valuable customer insights can be extracted. In-store analytics are gathered from three phases of the customer journey – entry, browsing and exit. By analyzing payment systems, video surveillance, Wi-Fi trackers and RFID tags, retailers can leverage situational data to:

• Heat map the stores
• Measure sales engagement
• Target promotional offers
• Test campaign effectiveness
• Make the purchase more experiential

Location intelligence derived through geospatial data has also been enabling stores to improve risk assessment, strengthen asset lifecycles and increase customer satisfaction and engagement.


5 ways artificial intelligence can skyrocket customer experienceWatch Video

The intelligence of things

Artificial Intelligence has emerged a technology disruptor in reshaping brick-and-mortar shopping experiences. Harnessing cognitive computing and natural language processing, it offers actionable intelligence to customers and store agents. AI-led checkout counters, navigation systems, and delivery kiosks are leading the digital transition for customers; to make them feel more empowered and valued.

• Eliminate waiting time through self-service
• Speed up sales conversions
• Revitalize inventory value
• Simplify the payment process
• Turn stores into experiential hubs

Behind the scenes, away from the direct scrutiny of customers, AI has been revitalizing the way inventory management and restocking is carried out. Combining imaging technology with robotic process automation, retailers can ensure their buyers find what they want when they need it.

Embrace change, be constant

As another popular saying goes, change is the only tangible constant. It applies to real-world and virtual experiences. For retailers, not all of it may spell good fortune in 2019. But the new year will also present them with opportunities to thrive; to continue being a crucial chapter in their brand’s success story. According to eBay Enterprise Center, 84% consumers believe that retailers should be doing more to better integrate their offline and online channels. Therefore with the right mix of technology adoption and future-proofed business acumen, they will be able to make inroads into the minds of their customers.

The brick-and-mortar store is not dead. But, those taking a nap may not survive for too long. The ones who wake up and smell the digital transformation, though, will make their presence felt in 2019.

• How millennials are changing the retail industry?

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• How to deliver omni-channel customer experience?

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• Eight trends that will shape the future of customer experience in 2019

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/eight-trends-that-will-shape-the-future-of-customer-experience-in-2019/ Thu, 06 Dec 2018 10:10:33 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=3049 When it comes to dealing with brands, customers have a clear idea of what they want. If they aren’t happy, they will let it be known. While enterprises have embraced new technologies to meet customer needs, it hasn’t always translated into seamless customer experiences. It is therefore important to re-examine your customer experience strategy, on […]

The post Eight Trends That Will Shape The Future Of Customer Experience in 2019 appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> When it comes to dealing with brands, customers have a clear idea of what they want. If they aren’t happy, they will let it be known. While enterprises have embraced new technologies to meet customer needs, it hasn’t always translated into seamless customer experiences.

It is therefore important to re-examine your customer experience strategy, on yearly, quarterly or even on a monthly basis, to stay ahead of the game.

Here are our top eight customer experience trends, in no particular order, to track in 2019.

Trend #1: Predictive analytics – To keep your customers coming back

Contact centers have always been able to address issues on a reactive mode. While this allows them to manage large call volumes and track past interactions, can just being reactive meet customer expectations?

With predictive analytics, enterprises can identify glitches, even before customers take notice – leading to faster decisions and higher customer satisfaction levels. For instance, Facebook sends out app updates every two weeks to fix bugs proactively and avert support calls.

“81% of management leaders predict they will compete mainly on CX. But only 22% have claimed to create an experience that exceeds expectations”
Gartner

Trend #2: Natural Language Processing (NLP) – To interpret every customer’s need

In today’s world, communication is either sugar-coated or straightforward. For brands with high interaction volumes, it is a tedious task for agents to go through and filter them manually.

NLP enables computers to understand human language without manual intervention. When equipped with Natural Language Understanding (NLU), it can holistically understand customer’s context, emotions, goals, and behavior – even without them having to state it explicitly. As channels of communication increase, NLP can unlock the power of open-ended feedback. For instance, NLP algorithms can analyze customer sentiments about the latest MacBook based on their tweets.

Trend #3: Conversational AI – To keep the engagement going

Artificial Intelligence is at a phase where it can only go upwards. It has made its way into how we interact. As customers become accustomed to using this technology, will it be able to deliver human-like conversations?

Enterprises are blending AI-driven customer interaction systems such as chatbots, and virtual customer assistants with NLP algorithms to build conversational AI systems. This allows them to automate and drive personalized customer engagements at scale. Conversational AI isn’t a technology meant only for enterprises. It is the force behind a growing $2.68 billion industry that’s projected to reach over $11 billion by 2023.  For instance, Google Home smart speakers allow users to have a full-fledged conversation with the bot. 



Trend #4: Process automation – To meet customer needs faster and improve agent productivity

The average customer doesn’t have patience, especially when they face a customer service problem. They don’t care about your systems; all they want is an immediate solution and expect customer service agents to be superheroes. The future certainly belongs to brands that give customers instant gratification.

While it’s not possible to turn customer service agents into superheroes, an increasing number of enterprises are looking at process automation as a tour de force. Automation streamlines back-office processes and improves operational efficiency. It can even help agents solve customer problems faster by minimizing time-consuming tasks and manual errors so that they can concentrate on more critical activities.

Trend #5: Hyper-personalization – To redefine the meaning of CX

Personalization has made customers feel special and helped enterprises build long-lasting relationships. How can brands continue to wow them with each experience in 2019?

Personalization needs to go beyond identifying the customer by their name and recognizing subtle details that are otherwise tough to catch. But when you integrate technologies such as artificial intelligence and IoT, hyper-personalization with customer interaction channels, it can be effective. In the era of the evolved customer, hyper-personalization can provide targeted services, promotions, and campaigns, like in the case of the Netflix’s recommendations engine based on individual viewing patterns. According to Accenture, 75% of customers will respond more to offerings personalized to individual preferences.


How to deliver personalized customer experience? | ServionWatch Video

 

Trend #6: Voice search – To offer more convenience to the customer

From Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri, to Microsoft’s Cortana and Samsung’s S Voice, voice search has come a long way; it has begun to replace text search, as a more convenient routine. But, can voice-based technologies be optimized to suit the customer’s changing needs?

With its ability to interpret user intent and behavior, voice-search will reach new levels of sophistication in customer experience. ComScore predicts that by 2020, 50% of all searches will be powered by voice searches. For instance, customers can look for flight tickets to Hawaii for a holiday using voice; also, the device will anticipate their needs and suggest sunglasses or sunscreen.

Trend #7: Interactive technologies – To create immersive experiences

With the rise of smartphones and digital media, customers are more distracted than ever, especially the millennials. With a diminishing attention span, they get easily overwhelmed and often chose to avoid engagements that are not authentic. But it’s crucial for any brand to consistently engage with their customer. So, how do they keep a distracted customer, engaged?

The answer lies with technologies like Augmented and Virtual Reality that provide an extra sensory appeal. For instance, Ikea, the Swedish furniture retailer, uses augmented reality for a more immersive online shopping experience. With an AR-powered app, customers can use their smart devices to assess how a product fits in the space along with the rest of the furniture. In 2019 more brands will switch to an AR or VR based experience.

Trend #8: Voice of the Customer (VOC) – To listen and improve experiences

Most customers want brands to listen to them, understand their anxieties, and act on their feedback. According to industry research, 78% of customers think it’s important for a brand to listen to them and respond thoughtfully, but feel only 17% of brands are truly listening.

In 2019, more brands will adopt Voice of the Customer tools to minimize this gap between expectations and the experience. They will provide a direct line for customers and employ techniques that capture feedback about a brand, product or service. By connecting VOC, enterprises can engage with them across their customer journey, spot potential crisis early, gain customer insights on new launches, customize offerings, and increase loyalty by giving customers exactly what they want.

The past year saw many enterprises hedge their vets on omni-channel and personalized experience – powered by artificial intelligence. With 2019 just around the corner, set out to make to your customers’ lives easier and better. Once you get your CX right, profits will follow

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• How to deliver omni-channel customer experience?

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• Unlock the power of customer analytics to deliver the best brand experience

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/internet-of-things-no-more-a-stranger-in-the-world-of-cx/ Thu, 29 Nov 2018 09:03:20 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=3025 IoT (Internet of Things) is changing everything. It’s converging the digital and the physical world. With it, we have entered a smarter environment where just about any device can be connected to another. Gartner says that it will be the most game-changing IT initiative since cloud computing. They predict that by 2020, a majority of new […]

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]]> IoT (Internet of Things) is changing everything. It’s converging the digital and the physical world. With it, we have entered a smarter environment where just about any device can be connected to another. Gartner says that it will be the most game-changing IT initiative since cloud computing. They predict that by 2020, a majority of new business processes and systems will incorporate an element of IoT.

It’s playing a big role in the customer experience industry by enhancing communication, reducing wait times, and gaining greater insights. By embedding IoT, enterprises can provide effortless experiences that ultimately results in loyalty, additional revenues, and optimized efficiencies.

Going beyond traditional CX trends, Internet of Things presents a lot of benefits, for the enterprise and the customer. Here’s how it helps:

“The internet of things is not a concept; it is a network, the true technology-enabled Network of all networks”
Edewede Oriwoh

IoT helps to gain faster insights: Earlier, enterprises had a limited amount of information available to them. But with IoT, huge amounts of data can be mined from devices. With proper customer interactions analysis, it can transform a reactive service into a proactive one. 

Enterprises can now create meaningful and personalized interactions. Using contextual information, they can understand their needs or desires based on how customers click through a website. They can predict in real-time what will happen next before an upselling opportunity is lost or a frustrated client decides to quit the service.

Provides seamless experience: When customers connect with an enterprise using numerous channels they expect continuity and consistency between them. IoT-enabled devices provide information about how customers are using these devices. This will help connect service gaps and deliver a seamless and consistent experience . Thus, giving customers the freedom to move from one channel to another without interruptions.

Enables agents to be more prepared: Agents spend a major part of their time resolving complaints or queries. Internet of things will help agents access information on the go and equip them to respond to customer queries/complaints in a better way based on previous interactions. The faster the data is available to them, the easier it is for them to provide solutions, leading to speedy problem resolution.



Detects problems automatically: Using IoT, enterprises can provide high-quality service. It can proactively diagnose and identify problems, predict maintenance and service needs, even before a customer feels the need to complain. Whenever there is an outage or problem, information can be shared in advance through notifications. They can also connect their service centers to offer immediate assistance, thus reducing operational cost while enhancing customer experience. A common example is when smartphones receive software upgrades to fix bugs.

Empowers better forecasting and planning: Analytics, sensors, diagnostics, and insights from multiple devices offer complete transparency of services, giving enterprises the ability to monitor performance. This means the device could take the place of the customer and take actions to resolve issues by sending reports. Therefore, enterprises can quickly upgrade their offering to meet their customer needs and also anticipate future preferences.

Why integrating IoT matters to your customer experience

The proliferation of IoT promises a world where connected objects think on our behalf, automate tasks and help us live efficient and comfortable lives. Despite its complexities, enterprises are gaining tremendous business value from it. It’s changing the way interaction takes place, by helping you improve your relationships and the overall experience. Thus, driving smarter business decisions and making customer experience completely synchronized.

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• Is artificial intelligence different from machine learning?

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/get-your-customers-at-hello/ Wed, 21 Nov 2018 00:00:25 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=744 “You had me at hello” is every brand’s aspiration for great customer experience. The experience you give your customer the first time they reach out to you is always a make-or-break scenario. If you make it, then you have gained a customer for life, well almost. You just cannot let your guard down. You must […]

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]]> “You had me at hello” is every brand’s aspiration for great customer experience. The experience you give your customer the first time they reach out to you is always a make-or-break scenario. If you make it, then you have gained a customer for life, well almost. You just cannot let your guard down. You must live up to the expectation of giving the best service every time they reach out to your brand.

Organizations that provide exceptional customer experience, in today’s fast-moving times, win their customers, not only during the first interaction – but during every single one.

Today, November 21, as the world celebrates World Hello Day we would like to highlight the importance of personalized communication, and how it is the key to setting standards, scaling expectations, and driving long-lasting relationships.

Let’s take a look at a few instances in which brands have ensured that they have a customer for life.

“First impressions last. You start behind the eight ball you’ll never get in front”
Harvey Specter from Suits (a popular TV series)

Eye care

Warby Parker is an American brand of prescription eyeglasses and sunglasses. Recently, a customer had abandoned a pair of glasses on a train, and had gone home to find his glasses, as well as a replacement pair waiting for him! All thanks to his seatmate on the train – a former Warby Parker General Counsel!

Grateful, the customer put out a personal reinforcement that Warbys indeed excels at customer service on Facebook.



A hands-on experience

“Deliver WOW Through Service” is the core mantra of Zappos, an eCommerce giant. Their commitment to customer care is best described by one of their own staff members.

“Recently, a newly-married couple was packing up their belongings in preparation for moving. The husband packed his wife’s jewelry inside one of her purses and packed the purse inside what he thought was a spare Zappos box. The wife, it turns out, was intending to return that purse to Zappos using that very box. Which she then does, having no idea that inside the purse now were several thousand dollars of her jewelry!

When the couple arrive at their new home and start to unpack, bedlam breaks out as the wife figures out what has happened and why her jewelry is missing. The rep she reaches at Zappos decides to reroute the box directly to his desk, but once it arrives, the rep fears for the safety of the valuables if he were to ship them, and purchases a plane ticket to hand-deliver the package himself.” Rob Siefker Senior director – Customer Loyalty, Zappos

When the rep from Zappos arrives, the couple invite him for dinner and express their heartfelt gratitude for the wonderful service he had offered them. Yet again, customers for life, as you can imagine.

Empathy takes flight

A few years ago, Southwest airlines were in the news for a representative of theirs going above and beyond his line of duty to make sure a grieving customer was taken care of.

An elderly man had received tragic news that his grandson was in a coma; that he had to be taken off life support by the next evening so that his organs could be used to save lives. He needed to take multiple flights to be there soon so he could see his grandson one last time.

Early in the morning, he had planned to fly from Los Angeles to Tuscon, from where he would have to immediately catch another flight that was headed to Denver. Even though he had shown up at the airport two hours before the flight, he was held up by long waiting lines. When he finally made it to the gate, he was 12 minutes late. We all know airlines have stringent rules when it comes to departures and arrivals. Twelve minutes may not sound like a lot but every second counts when you are an airline.



“They can’t go anywhere without me and I wasn’t going anywhere without you. Now relax. We’ll get you there. And again, I’m so sorry.”

The pilot could have lost his job for his actions. After all, it was his decision. Instead, Southwest airlines supported his decision and said that they were proud of him.

Hello, I am here for you

To the casual reader, these stories may seem a bit over-the-top. Something that you only get to read on click-baiting articles or those whacky RSS feeds you subscribe to. But, the truth is that in customer experience – the fact is not just stranger than fiction, it is a lot more humanized too. The common factor in the three brands was that their commitment to delivering exceptional customer service. Even if it meant bypassing a few laid-out processes. They had empowered their employees to take quick decisions that may be critical to the way a customer perceives the brand.

At the end of the day, being kind, helpful, and informative are the foundation elements of making customers happy.

So, the next time you say hello, ask yourself – have you made a customer for life?

• Your guide to improve customer effort score

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/9-ways-manage-spikes-contact-center/ Thu, 15 Nov 2018 04:53:53 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=2993 We apologize for the experience you’ve had. We will definitely help you get this issue resolved. Your refund has been processed. It will reflect in your bank account in the next 3-5 days. I will ensure that your issue is resolved in the next 24 hours. Be rest assured. What if customer experiences in the […]

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]]> We apologize for the experience you’ve had. We will definitely help you get this issue resolved.

Your refund has been processed. It will reflect in your bank account in the next 3-5 days.

I will ensure that your issue is resolved in the next 24 hours. Be rest assured.

What if customer experiences in the contact center could always be like the ones above?

For enterprises, the contact center is the heart of customer engagement. It’s a tough job and a demanding one – for both agents and supervisors. One minute everything is fine but in the next, anything can go wrong. Especially when agents face a sudden spike in the volume of customer interactions coming in.

Planned spikes are bound to take place when a marketing promotion or a discount sale is proposed to hit the market. The factors are understood and predictable. This is most evident during shopping seasons when your contact center transforms into a battle zone, where volumes can cross 200% of peak capacity.

With such a staggering number of interactions heading the agent’s way, it may not be possible to cater to every interaction. And this goes against the adage – “Leave no customer behind”. Subsequently, when agents handle customer interactions during spikes, the resolution time elongates, following a domino effect. But when a random technical outage takes down the operations, that’s when the contact center turns into a bed of thorns.

A seasonal spike is perhaps the lesser evil when compared to the dreaded unplanned spike. They are uncalled for and come as a shock to the system. It can lead to revenue losses and additional stress on customer service. It can also prove to be a deal-breaker to your customers and make them switch their loyalties.

As the holiday season approaches, retailers and e-commerce giants are busy prepping. Particularly for those last-minute shopping escapades. With spike management essentially an integrated organizational effort, what strategy do you put in place to ensure customer experience doesn’t suffer?


Read our comprehensive 9-step guide to manage spikes in your contact centerDownload

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/9-reasons-why-need-consider-live-chat/ Thu, 08 Nov 2018 10:45:05 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=2974 The world is changing and with each passing moment, the changes are manifold. With smarter technology, customer behavior is becoming dynamic. According to eMarketer, “internet adoption will surpass the halfway mark in 2018, when 51.1% of the world’s population will go online.” The growing adoption of the internet has led to changes in customer attitude. […]

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]]> The world is changing and with each passing moment, the changes are manifold. With smarter technology, customer behavior is becoming dynamic. According to eMarketer, “internet adoption will surpass the halfway mark in 2018, when 51.1% of the world’s population will go online.” The growing adoption of the internet has led to changes in customer attitude. Everything is turning into “I want it now” and customers are no longer patient. They expect instant replies and if they don’t get answers, they are ready to switch to competition at the click of a button. By investing in one of the most popular trends in customer support – live chat, enterprises can deliver powerful and differentiated customer experiences.

For any contact center, it’s important to address customer problems immediately to avoid customer churn. Live chat enables agents to handle concurrent communications with end users. Thus, providing resolutions to problems in real-time.

Here are nine reasons why live chat can be beneficial for your enterprise.

“42% of consumers say that they prefer live chat functions because they don’t have to wait on hold”
Inc.com

1) Reduced wait times – Typically when a customer calls the contact center, the call is put on hold. Depending on the availability of the agent, the wait time varies. Longer wait times lead to customer frustration and call abandonment. However, with live chat, wait times are lesser or almost nil as the customer can connect with an agent instantly.

2) Faster resolution to complex issues – On the phone, if a customer has a query that is complex, agents invariably transfer the call to other agents or supervisors if he/she cannot provide the answer the customer expects. However, with live chat, multiple agents can answer the chat at the same time, solving complex issues easily. This puts an end to hold times, dropped calls, or frustrating transfers.

3) Better call handling – While a phone agent can handle only one customer at a time, live chat facilitates a skilled agent to handle multiple sessions with many customers. This also reduces turnaround time.

4) Lowers operational cost – The cost involved in implementing a live chat solution is very low. Moreover, the cost per interaction is low when compared to other mediums like email or phone. It also decreases phone cost and the cost of hiring additional agents.

5) Increases customer satisfaction – According to a survey conducted by Econsultancy, “73% of customers were satisfied after using live chat. This is higher than any other form of customer support such as email, telephone, or social media”. Thus, higher customer satisfaction rates lead to higher customer conversions.



6) Easier to provide customized service – Live chat offers a greater scope for personalization. A chat agent can quickly browse through the database and look at customer history, purchasing power, preferences, and then quickly provide the information that the customer is looking for.

7) Reduces negative impressions – Usually, when a customer is dissatisfied, they vent their anger on social media. With live chat, there is a higher chance of reducing customer dissatisfaction as customers get instant replies to their queries. Customer pain points can be discussed at length and necessary steps are taken to address the issues.

8) Helps in upselling/cross-selling – This is a great way to up sales. After an effective query resolution, agents can upsell or cross-sell related products and offerings. Unlike phone conversations, which are relatively kept short, chat conversations can make a user comfortable. Agents can be ‘influential’ and help users in their decision-making. The more comfortable the user becomes, the more likely he/she is to make additional purchases.

9) Gain an edge over competition – You don’t find live chat very often on websites. But, many customers prefer using this feature of customer support over email/phone calls. This means that if you install live chat, you will have more opportunities to engage with your visitors, thus giving you an advantage over your competitors.

While online chat should not replace your traditional phone/email systems, enterprises that are keen on offering great customer service and building customer relationships should look towards investing in live chat.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/create-effective-proactive-customer-service/ Thu, 01 Nov 2018 06:37:01 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=2947 We live in an era where almost half of the world’s population is connected to the Internet. A large percentage of them access it through mobile devices. The global mobile population accounts for 3.7 billion unique users who spend 7x more time on native mobile apps. Thus, it is not only imperative to deliver stellar […]

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]]> We live in an era where almost half of the world’s population is connected to the Internet. A large percentage of them access it through mobile devices. The global mobile population accounts for 3.7 billion unique users who spend 7x more time on native mobile apps. Thus, it is not only imperative to deliver stellar experiences but offer proactive customer service every time.

CX has become a gamechanger when dealing with markets strife with cut-throat competition and high acquisition costs. With enterprises focusing on providing the best in class experience across various parts of the journey, what’s the next big thing? How does one stay ahead of the curve? How do you retain your existing customers? More importantly, how do you consistently acquire new ones?

The answer is simple – engage proactively. It’s a key pillar for enterprises to make the first move and go out of their way to solve potential problems before customers start asking for help.

However, not being proactive can cause delays in problem resolution and create a cascading effect of more problems. That’s why proactive customer service aids in better demand management. It leverages customer information such as their profile, preferences, historical behavior to intelligently design journeys that are aimed towards solving issues.


How to deliver proactive customer service? | ServionWatch Video

What does ‘engage proactively’ mean?

It does not mean overloading the customer with unnecessary sales calls for new products or intruding their personal lives. Instead, one could identify problems or questions that they might have at each stage of the journey and reach out to them with relevant solutions.

For instance, if a customer is browsing through the watch category on an e-commerce website, the company could use analytical models to display relevant suggestions based on previous transactions. This could not just save time and effort for the customer but also create a personalized experience, which could further be enhanced at the point of purchase / post-purchase.

“Customer service shouldn’t just be a department, it should be the entire company”
Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos.com)

How do enterprises go about creating a proactive customer service?

A customer journey is typically split into three stages – pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase. But to provide a holistic and proactive customer service, enterprises need to focus on every stage of the journey. Here are a few tips to help you create and provide superior experiences while improving loyalty across the lifecycle.

• Deploy analytics to personalize the search experience by offering suggestions, free consultation, information on substitutes or competitor price points
• Provide a list of easy to understand and exhaustive FAQs
• Take an omni-channel route and interact with the customer via their channel of choice
• Proactively identify the best payment method based on transactional history
• Communicate regularly with timely status updates until delivery
• Have flexible return and exchange policies
• Keep the customer informed of upgrades and other complementary products to enable avenues of cross-selling
• Be accessible and empathetic; always acknowledge complaints or service requests
• Seek feedback on the product/service experience and problem resolutions


Does adopting a proactive customer service help?

Enterprises fear losing customers because the competition is higher than ever before. It is why being retroactive can take them to front doors of competitors. Being proactive about what customers need, however, can assuage these fears. It can:

• Reduce acquisition costs through earlier stage engagement
• Reduce customer effort and lead to brand ambassadorship
• Reduce contact per unit ratio; reducing customer service cost
• Control customer churn
• Make customers feel valued

Delivering great experiences is not a one-time activity. Successful brands who boast of high customer loyalty have made this into a habit. If an enterprise wants to achieve sustained loyalty, they should take care to ensure that the promise they have made to customers is successfully translated into its engagement strategy. Having a proactive and holistic engagement strategy can go a long way in building loyalty and achieving the competitive advantage.

• Unlock the power of customer analytics to deliver the best brand experience

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• Zen-like tips to offer proactive customer experience

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• How to make a good omni-channel strategy great for the telecom industry?

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/robots-vs-humans-terminate-your-fear/ Wed, 17 Oct 2018 10:02:45 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=1792 I have a sneaky suspicion that some people might be confusing the rise of artificial intelligence in the job market with the story-line from the Terminator trilogy. It has been gaining a fair amount of notoriety as the ultimate job killer. And if you believe the soothsayers – you can assume it is all over, […]

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]]> I have a sneaky suspicion that some people might be confusing the rise of artificial intelligence in the job market with the story-line from the Terminator trilogy. It has been gaining a fair amount of notoriety as the ultimate job killer. And if you believe the soothsayers – you can assume it is all over, folks. Better learn how to grow your own fruits and vegetables. Or buy a lottery ticket. Perhaps, your only hope is that, at some point, Arnold Schwarzenegger drops in to save you from a bleak future.

Some even predict that because of trends such as robotic process automation, you may become a disposable resource. No matter the domain skills you have, you are likely to be flung from one position to another before getting thrown out. So, apparently, you are in danger of turning into Sundar Pichai’s cockroach too

From where I stand, the popular sense of panic is perplexing. Why are we so anxious about the impact of artificial intelligence and the role of automatons on our careers? More importantly, are we really that unprepared for an outcome that has been predicted since the 4th century?



Let us take a look back at some of the historical references to artificial intelligence-driven automation.

In 320 BC, philosopher and scientist Aristotle had expressly mentioned in his book – Politics – that automation of work could someday lead to equality in human labor.

From 1023-950 BC, craftsmen in ancient China had built mechanical mannequins that were used to chime the hours and ring the gongs to help in keeping time schedules.

In 1495, noted polymath Leonardo da Vinci had created one of the first recorded designs of a humanoid robot – a mechanical knight capable of limited movement.

In the 1500s, mathematicians Johannes Müller von Königsberg and John Dee had designed automaton birds and insects that were reputed to be capable of flight.

During the 1700s, inventor Jacques de Vaucanson had made incredible breakthroughs through his automaton-based musicians and his tour de force – The Digesting Duck.

In the 1800s, Tanaka Hisashige, known as Japan’s Edison, had invented mechanical toys that were capable of performing tasks such as serving tea, firing arrows and painting.

In 1928, inventor WH Richards had designed one of the first remote-controlled humanoid robots, which was exhibited at the Model Engineers Society in London.

During the 1940s, writer and professor Isaac Asimov had coined the word “robotics” through his seminal work – the Three Laws of Robotics, and mathematician Norbert Wiener had formulated the principles of cybernetics, which laid the foundation for the modern usage of robotics.

In 1954, inventor George Devol had invented the world’s first digitally operated, programmable and patented robot. In 1961, he had sold it to General Motors for usage in their die casting machines.



Since the 1970s, several breakthroughs were made in its application across a plethora of industries. From space shuttle missions to complex surgeries, AI-powered automation has been a herculean force in bridging solution gaps, solving manpower problems and cutting technology costs.

Fast-forward to 2017. Suddenly, people seem to be panicking over the eventuality of robots being able to perform the tasks that they are responsible for. But, I humbly ask though, how did we not see this coming? If history has taught us anything – it is that it uncannily repeats itself. The influx of AI technologies has made our lives easier. From food delivery and travel to shopping, it has made things faster and more efficient. Yet as a working professional, we look at it as though it is an alpha predator that is ready to steal our jobs.

Irrespective of what we think of it, we must be ready for a whole new world of opportunities. It is myopic to refer to AI-powered automation as a job killer. It is a disruptive phenomenon that has been portrayed as a fearful climax from a science fiction movie that maybe starring Arnold Schwanagger.

“Our intelligence is what makes us human, and AI is an extension of that quality”
Yann LeCun

The claims about software robots replacing human beings seem a little short-sighted too. A more accurate prediction would be that such automatons will be replacing human beings who are responsible for mundane and repetitive work. As a result, it will force them to step up and enhance their skill-sets.

Because the real problem that we have to deal with is the burgeoning complacency in building skills. As long as we are willing to scale up along with technology – new and exciting opportunities await us. It will help us in escaping the chopping block of redundancies. And provide the necessary tools for us to ensure sustainable employment.

But, if you still have a gloomy perspective on what AI-powered automation is going to do to your career go home and think long and hard about how difficult your life would be without it.

I bet you could not even fathom an existence without automation. Now ask yourself – why is it such a surprise that everyone else feels the same way too?

• The rise of robots and the beginning of automation

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• 6 ways artificial intelligence can skyrocket customer experience

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• How artificial intelligence can make 2018 the year of the customer?

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/self-service-artificial-intelligence/ Thu, 11 Oct 2018 11:09:24 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=2903 A world run by robots, at our constant beck and call, this was something that we had foreseen. What we once called the technology of the future, has now become a reality. And with each passing day, the power and capabilities of it are increasing. And when we thought robots would aid our daily routines, […]

The post Is Self Service The Icing On The Cake Of AI (Artificial Intelligence)? appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> A world run by robots, at our constant beck and call, this was something that we had foreseen. What we once called the technology of the future, has now become a reality. And with each passing day, the power and capabilities of it are increasing.

And when we thought robots would aid our daily routines, it could have been like one of the Autobots from The Transformers. Technology has evolved to an extent where it doesn’t always need a physical form, as now, it can be built to be part of any device or software.

And yes, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made our lives a little bit easier. It has, of course, automated activities and processes. But there’s more to it than virtual assistants like Alexa, Siri, Cortana or the Google Assistant.

“AI continues to drive change in how businesses and governments interact with customers and constituents”
Gartner

So how does self-service fit into this?

Problem resolution, a few years ago, wouldn’t end in a single call.

If you have some trouble with your credit card, the first thing you would do is contact a contact center agent to explain your problem. And if it isn’t solved in the prescribed time, you undergo the painful process of explaining the problem again, this time to another agent. While this issue would eventually get sorted, it results in reduced brand loyalty and much lesser customer experience.

As the usage of smart devices and digital platforms are rising, Artificial Intelligence is taking over and bridging the gap between enterprises and customers.

Research says that empowered customers have a strong do-it-yourself mindset, and want to find quick answers to service inquiries, on their own terms. Self-service platforms and applications are improving and adding value to customer experience. This provides faster response times, better routing, lesser human interaction, and predictive capabilities. Besides this, self-service tools can also read/understand customers’ behavioral and transactional patterns for better assistance.



These intelligent platforms when powered by a strong rule-engine, perform tasks of high efficiency and quality. This proves that self-service closely working together with AI is the hope for enterprises and customers.

With customer trends changing, restricting self-service to specific platforms/ communication mediums can tamper with the number of customer interactions received. Thus, an omni-channel self-service is the best solution. This broadens how you can serve your customers better.

Another value addition that self-service brings, is the level of personalization that it can do to reach higher levels of customer experience. With customer insights, speech recognition tools, and predictive engines, you can target interactions to the right customer, anywhere and at any time.

Doing this to ensure your customers are happy is the overall objective. But you need to know what works for your enterprise. You could start reading on the most powerful engagement options through self-service or talk to an expert on the AI and self-service domain.

• How Servion helped a leading international bank in the UAE to provide intelligent self-service?

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• 6 ways how artificial intelligence can skyrocket your customer experience?

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• How AI-powered interaction analytics can transform the banking industry?

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/upskilling-customer-experience-ecosystem/ Wed, 03 Oct 2018 10:00:53 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=2875 For any enterprise, there is one question that is always omnipresent, ‘How do we acquire new customers and retain our existing ones?’ The answer to that is quite simple, but we often miss out on doing what’s necessary. We need to be involved in the customer’s experience. We need to listen to what they want […]

The post Upskilling In The Customer Experience Ecosystem appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> For any enterprise, there is one question that is always omnipresent, ‘How do we acquire new customers and retain our existing ones?’ The answer to that is quite simple, but we often miss out on doing what’s necessary. We need to be involved in the customer’s experience. We need to listen to what they want to say and empathize with them, whether it is happy or frustrating. It’s important to show them how much we care.

To do this, anybody in a customer interfacing role, from sales to support and contact center agents need to upskill. It’s all about learning and developing the art of empathy, seeking incidents and stories from customers, having a genuine interest in listening to them and more.

Therefore, one must understand the customer experience ecosystem and carefully analyze the sentiments. That’s the first step in being creative and thus being innovative. And this is how products and services are co-created for customers.

“An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly is the ultimate competitive advantage”
Jack Welch

Keith Schorah, founder and CEO of a customer intelligence enterprise says that it is vital that CX is designed for and measured by what customers actually experience. To do that, businesses must adopt a strong customer experience program that helps create customer loyalty and retention.

The workplace is constantly transforming

Employees gain more confidence when they are close to their customers. It is even more evident when they add value to their business and lives. Fluid intelligence and fresh thinking is the key to adding value. Fluid intelligence is not crystallized intelligence. It is the knowledge of the future whereas crystallized intelligence is the knowledge of the past. To develop fluid intelligence, one should upskill and cross-skill.

In the current VUCA era, where most things like technology and products are Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous, it has become even more important to upskill oneself to meet the ever-changing customer demands. It isn’t about what you already know, but more about the curiosity, interest and willingness to learn.

At the workplace, skills are considered one of the most valuable assets. It doesn’t just make a business more profitable and productive, but can also lead to greater advancement opportunities for employees. Thus, it has become a mission for employees to be future-ready.



What upskilling can do for you?

For enterprises who want to lead in the customer experience ecosystem, it is critical to imbibe and develop a culture of continuous learning. This is because a learning culture increases employee resilience, productivity and improves innovation. Thus, it can be beneficial for you in the long run.

• Opening a new door to challenges and opportunities can lead to a discovery of passions. Very often when employees are placed in such situations, it helps them grow professionally and works well for the business too.
• In the customer experience industry, one thing that is certain is uncertainty. So, make yourself future-proof by taking responsibility for your learning and upskilling in the variety of areas that are applicable to your domain. This could even mean offering services in-house that were previously outsourced in the light of losing valuable business from customers. Hence, investing in existing staff could help you meet your long-term goals.
• Lastly, what would make any customer feel reliable towards any product or service? It’s all about adapting to the speed of change. Speed comes from every individual working with products or services who have adequate or more knowledge on the process, technology, domain, and behavioral skills. And it’s one of the ways to stand out in a crowd.
“By 2020 an estimate of about 2.3 million jobs will be created because of AI”
Gartner

Upskilling has become a buzzword among enterprises. It is more relevant for employees who are in customer-facing roles. So keep looking out for opportunities to use automation and robots in creating dynamic systems and interfaces and even learning management systems that will help any customer interfacing role to learn and upskill.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/20-important-contact-center-metrics-track/ Wed, 26 Sep 2018 02:30:11 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=902 “Hey, why did you cut the call you received just now even before answering it?” “I think it must be from one of those contact center agents trying to offer me either a credit card or a loan”. “Thank you for patiently listening to my queries”. “It’s my pleasure to help you”. “Look John, I […]

The post 20 Important Contact Center Metrics To Track appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> “Hey, why did you cut the call you received just now even before answering it?” “I think it must be from one of those contact center agents trying to offer me either a credit card or a loan”.

“Thank you for patiently listening to my queries”. “It’s my pleasure to help you”.

“Look John, I have been answering calls since morning. I am switching to an after call work mode for a while.”

These are some of the common conversations associated with a contact center. The first is between two people about a call that has been received and abandoned before being answered. The second is between a customer and an agent about the quality of service. While the third is between two agents about their after-call work. While these look like seemingly harmless conversations, each one is associated with contact center metrics.

Organizations that care about delivering high-class customer experience and benefit from long-term profitable growth, should focus on tracking contact center metrics. This will help them understand how their contact center is performing what needs to be done to improve its standards, how it can improve its employee performance, how to identify weaknesses prevalent in the system and set goals for both the individual and the organization.

“Customer service is an opportunity to exceed your customer’s expectations”
John Jantsch

While there are many contact center metrics list, here are twenty that we think are important.

1) Adherence to Schedule is measured by taking the time a contact center agent is available for call work and dividing it by the time they are scheduled to work, expressed as a percentage. This metric is used to determine whether or not contact center agents are working the amount of time they are scheduled to work.

2) Agent Absenteeism is the number of days lost per year due to agents being absent. It is calculated as a percentage of the total number of contracted days.

3) Agent Attrition, also known as ‘Agent Turnover’, measures the number of people who leave your contact center expressed as a percentage. There are two types of agent attrition – voluntary (where the agent chooses to leave) and involuntary (where the agent is asked to leave by the organization).

4) Average Abandonment Rate (AAR) is the percentage of callers who hang up before connecting with an agent. This indicates that the caller has either given up or has lost interest in the transaction.

5) Average After Call Work Time (ACW), also known as ‘Post-call Processing’, is the average amount of time an agent takes to wrap-up the work after they finish a call.

6) Average Handle Time (AHT) is the sum total of talk time, hold time and after call work time an agent is involved in, divided by the number of calls handled by the agent. This is a measure of an agent’s efficiency.

7) Average Speed of Answer (ASA) is the average amount of time it takes for calls to be answered in a contact center during a specific time period. The shorter the ASA, the better your service level.

8) Average Time in Queue is the amount of time customers wait in queue before their call is answered by an agent. This metric is directly related to the call abandonment rate, which in turn is tied to customer churn.



9) Call Quality metric measures how an agent deals with customers. It usually contains a list of criteria that agents must adhere to during a call. Call quality is determined by the number of criteria met against the total number of criteria.

10) Cost Per Call (CPC) is calculated by dividing the total operational costs by the total number of calls for a given period of time. This metric helps businesses to keep track of their cost of transactions.

11) Customer Satisfaction provides an assessment of your contact center’s performance from the customer’s perspective. The most common method used to assess customer satisfaction are through surveys – post-call survey or follow-up email questionnaire.

12) First Call Resolution, also known as ‘Best Contact Resolution’, measures the number of times a customer needs to call a contact center to get his/her problem resolved.

13) The Forecast Accuracy metric measures the percent variance between the number of calls predicted to arrive during a given period and the number of calls that the contact center actually receives during that time.

14) On-hold Time is the amount of time a customer spends on hold during the course of the conversation. The goal is to reduce the number of times a customer is placed on hold and to minimize the length of the hold time. A high percentage of on-hold time indicates that the system performance is slow or access to multiple systems is delaying the agents in processing customer’s requests.

15) Occupancy Rate is the measure of the actual time an agent is busy with customer contacts compared to the available or idle time of the agent. It is calculated by dividing the workload hours by staff hours. If you have low occupancy (i.e. <70%) you risk boredom by your agents. If you have consistently high occupancy (i.e. >85%) you risk over-extending your agents which can lead to higher and faster turnover.

“Every contact we have with a customer influences whether or not they’ll come back. We have to be great every time or we’ll lose them”
Kevin Stirtz

16) Percentage of Calls Blocked is an accessibility measure and it indicates what percentage of callers will not be able to access the contact center at a given time. During this time callers will hear only a busy tone. This can happen when there are:

• Insufficient telephone lines
• No available agents
• No call queues configured or call queues are full

17) Schedule Efficiency, also known as ‘Net Staffing Measure’, measures the degree of overstaffing and understaffing that exists as a result of a scheduling design. It indicates whether the most expensive resource, the frontline staff are used in the best possible way to match the workforce to the arriving workload.

18) The Self-Service Usage metric measures the degree of accessibility of information through the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system. This will provide information of how many callers accessed the self-service application and how many completed their transactions on the system with agent intervention.

19) Service Level, also known as ‘Telephone Service Factor’ (TSF) or ‘Grade of Service’ (GOS), is the percentage of calls answered within a specified number of seconds.

20) Transfer Rate refers to the number of calls that have been transferred to another agent to be handled. Tracking transfers can help fine-tune the routing strategies as well as identify performance gaps of the staff.

Enterprises should choose contact center metrics not because competition is using similar kinds of metrics. Instead, they should choose the ones that are relevant to their strategic goals. They should first determine the outcome they need and then work on a strategy to understand the contact center metrics in order to achieve it. It isn’t just enough to know about these contact center metrics and what they measure, organizations must also ensure that they get the best out of them by focusing on the right ones.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/are-you-high-on-enterprise-data-and-is-it-affecting-your-customers/ Wed, 19 Sep 2018 08:56:06 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=2841 There’s data all around you. Everything you see, whether it’s a person, an automobile, or even an electronic device, has valuable data that needs to be collected. As you collect and store piles of it, you begin to realize that you don’t know what to do with it. But how do you gain valuable insights […]

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]]> There’s data all around you. Everything you see, whether it’s a person, an automobile, or even an electronic device, has valuable data that needs to be collected. As you collect and store piles of it, you begin to realize that you don’t know what to do with it.

But how do you gain valuable insights from these large piles of customer data without wasting precious agent hours on mundane tasks?

With ServInsights, you can now say goodbye to long process queues, siloes of data, and focus on agent efficiency. Leveraging its unique dashboard, your enterprise will save time and access data insights in real-time by analyzing channel interactions and creating opportunities to serve your customers. 

ServInsights’ reporting tools and advanced data visualization techniques gives you the ability to interact with data effectively and perform root-cause analysis. It helps you identify customer segments for better decision-making and also engages in frequent cross-selling/upselling.

Using data correlation capabilities, you can increase customer relationship values through relevant and contextual interactions. Keeping the overall experience in mind, it helps you improve customer acquisition and retention rates, and run campaigns based on customer effort scores.

Are, you still wondering how all of this fits into a single platform?


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]]> https://servion.com/blog/how-millennials-are-transforming-the-healthcare-experience/ Wed, 12 Sep 2018 06:35:07 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=2438 The strange thing about the global market acceptance of the term ‘millennial’ is that everyone saw it coming three decades ago. Ever since the late 90s when the word was coined, businesses — all over the world — have been adapting to the generational shifts in customer behaviour. Those who acted on it were put […]

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]]> The strange thing about the global market acceptance of the term ‘millennial’ is that everyone saw it coming three decades ago. Ever since the late 90s when the word was coined, businesses — all over the world — have been adapting to the generational shifts in customer behaviour. Those who acted on it were put in a prime position to face the brave new digital-first future. The ones who took themselves out of the race have had to play catch-up since then.

The $3 trillion healthcare industry is no exception. They are being forced to re-look at the patient experience. Now in their prime spending years, the expectations of millennials for on-demand services are being taken very seriously.

After all, the Amazons, the Netflixs, and the Ubers of the world have customers spoilt for choice in terms of receiving fast, convenient and transparent experiences. Without incorporating millennial engagement as a part of the overall service strategy, the industry will fail to meet the expectations of their largest customer base.

“We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better”
Jeff bezos (CEO of Amazon.com)

However, investing heavily in technology alone cannot elevate the patient experience.

To know what sort of experience to provide, it is crucial to understand the type of person who demands it.

Four major symptoms of millennial behaviour

Millennials are 100 per cent digitally native: Millennials grew up with the Internet and mobile technology They swear by all things digital. It is where they spend most of their time. As tech-savvy and cost-conscious customers, they expect their healthcare services to be digitalized too. In a nutshell, no app equals to “no thanks”.

Relying on telemedicine: According to Salesforce.com, 60 per cent of millennials showed an interest in adopting the use of telemedicine. They regard it as a cost-effective and time-saving option. Especially, when compared to a doctor’s office visit, that includes tedious processes – from start to finish.

DIY preventive treatment: With instant access to information, millennials often tend to self-diagnose their health issues before actually consulting a doctor or using services like telemedicine. This readily available information has led them to take preventive actions by focussing on leading a healthy lifestyle (due to vast exposure to social media).

Instant expectations: Having grown up in a world of instant access, they expect healthcare services to fit into that hyper mold. With no room for long wait times and slow turnaround, they prefer specialised retail clinics or acute care facilities that offer quick and efficient healthcare delivery experience.



Millennial trends that are impacting the healthcare industry

Growing to outnumber the baby boomers, the millennials have already changed how healthcare providers outlast one other through competitive differentiation. Gone are the days when chat support, automated conversations, apps-as-service, and other technology advancements were considered as innovative experiences. Without them, it is impossible to survive in the digital marketplace.

Wearable technology: Over the past few years, this form of technology has been catching up. It goes beyond just tracking exercise but monitors heart rate, sleep patterns and much more. It is driving the possibility of collaborative healthcare models, where this data can be actively shared with doctors and physicians.

Wearable technology has helped millennials begin a workout routine by staying motivated with accurate information. These fitness trackers make them accountable in their fitness regimen, makes the journey easy to follow to actively obtain their goals.

Precision medicine: Today, applying a one-size-fits-all approach to treatments and prevention of diseases isn’t the answer as every individual’s genetics play a big role in recovery. Therefore, electronic health record systems served as the first form of personalisation. Soon, precision medicine will revolutionise patient care and experience.

An emerging approach to treating diseases and preventing them too, precision medicine takes into account the already stored health and lifestyle data that includes health history, environment and genetic information to diagnose and treat the illness. This will allow doctors and researchers to access a database, and be more accurate in predicting and tailoring treatment strategies for specific diseases.

“The global augmented reality and virtual reality healthcare markets are expected to reach $5.1 billion by 2025 “
Grand View Research

Word of mouth: Ironically, word-of-mouth advertising — one of the oldest marketing methods in existence — is big among millennials. The only difference from the days of yore is that these words are now exclusively spoken in the world wide web. They rely on online reviews as valuable sources of information about healthcare providers, and they are getting increasingly comfortable with sharing their treatment experiences. Majorly influenced by shared experiences, millennials take a broader view of the type of provider they need.

Therefore, the healthcare industry should be focussed on maximising the potential of social media channels while engaging existing and prospective patients. That is where people go to talk about any experiences they have. And that is exactly where their trust can be gained.

Augmented and virtual reality: A lot of AR and VR has revolved around gaming or retail, but it is soon expected to enter the healthcare realm. Technology has always played a major role not just in diagnosis, surgery, patient care or medical training but for simple procedures like drawing blood as well. With access to real-time data and patient information, this technology will also enhance the capability of the doctor to diagnose and treat conditions.

Tomorrow is today: Millennials can no longer be treated – literally and figuratively – as tomorrow’s patients. Healthcare companies must be millennial-friendly in order to be profitable in today’s service world that is getting friendlier and faster by the day.

After all, we are talking about meeting the expectations of a generation that has been around since the early 80s.

In 2018, should there even be a question as to whether we understand how they want to be taken care of?

• This article was originally published in Express Healthcare

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/customer-analytics-brand-experience/ Wed, 05 Sep 2018 10:09:29 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=2781 Manufacturing guru and statistician, W. Edwards Deming, encapsulates a data-driven mindset. He says, “In God we trust, all others must bring data”. Therefore, in this age where the customer is considered as king, data is an organization’s most valuable asset, and customer analytics is the key that unlocks the value of that asset. Customer analytics […]

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]]> Manufacturing guru and statistician, W. Edwards Deming, encapsulates a data-driven mindset. He says, “In God we trust, all others must bring data”. Therefore, in this age where the customer is considered as king, data is an organization’s most valuable asset, and customer analytics is the key that unlocks the value of that asset.

Customer analytics is the systematic examination of customer information. Analytics professionals mine data to identify and quantify the impact of customer pain points, to deliver personalized and superior experiences. Recently, customer analytics has become the most critical technology investment for enhancing CX. For example, organizations use analytics to improve product development and service delivery. Some financial services use analytics to prevent compliance and regulatory issues.

The trend towards investment in this technology is increasing. Therefore, it is important for organizations to consider not only the growing number of channels and interactions but also the increased volumes and connections that arise from the different data types in order to create a holistic customer experience.

“Customer analytics continues to be the top focus to improve customer experience with over one-third of respondents planning to increase their investments in this technology”
Gartner

Key factors of customer analytics that shape the future of CX

Real-time Responses

It is the ability to recognize and react to current business conditions in real-time. This involves understanding the customers’ quality of experience and interactions through specific touchpoints and addressing them with instant and appropriate actions. In business, faster responses mean the resolution time starts more quickly, which improves the decision quality.

For example, real-time offers can be ten times more effective than traditional outbound campaigns. To provide faster responses, organizations must understand the customer’s ‘tolerance window’.  As more time elapses before he gets a response – the more irritated he gets, and might abandon the transaction. However, if the response times are faster, it is more likely the customer would complete the transaction. Also, organizations have to remember, that the cost of providing analysis within a shorter time frame is expensive. Therefore, organizations must find an ideal point where the response is fast enough to please the customer and at the same time keep the cost at bay.


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Customer Journey Analytics

According to Gartner, customer journey analytics is “the process of tracking and analyzing the way customers use combinations of channels to interact with an organization and covers all channels present and future which interface directly with customers.” Simply put, customer journey analytics is the process of tracking and analyzing the way customers use a variety of available channels to interact with an organization.

Journey analytics help organizations to understand exactly what the customer thinks and feels at each step of the journey. This means that alignment between disparate business units is critical for a successful implementation. To visualize all the possible journeys that a customer can take, a journey map is useful. Journey maps provide a detailed description of the path a customer takes to achieve his goal. Though the forms of the maps may be varied, they should contain both anecdotal and statistical evidence.

“50 percent of companies who master the art of customer analytics are likely to have sales significantly above their competitors”
McKinsey

Interaction Analytics

It captures interactions across any channel such as voice, text, email, chat, surveys desktop applications and social media. However, one should remember that such interactions are free in form and unstructured in nature making it more difficult to analyze. Among this unstructured data lies a lot of valuable information that can be gleaned and converted into well-structured information for analysis. Interaction analytics allows organizations to have a 360-degree view of customers and helps in better understanding their journeys. Equipped with such actionable insights, organizations can keep their customers more engaged and provide an improved customer experience.



Conversational Commerce

It enables transactions to occur between an organization and its customer via messaging applications such as chat, SMS or other natural interface such as bots. These bots can handle payments, ensure delivery, and provide customer service. Bots are used to tailor the conversation toward each individual customer’s needs. This is based on their historical data patterns, preferences they have expressed, recommendations given by the brand and so on. This also removes the need for dedicated apps as most interactions go through a bot that allows users to chat in a friendly manner, removing all friction.

But, organizations must remember that deploying a conversational commerce solution has to fit with their other physical and digital channels that are already in place. The tone, and look and feel of the interaction with the bot must be in sync with what is being delivered by their email or SMS channels.


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Artificial Intelligence

AI represents new opportunities as well as challenges for analytics leaders to spearhead proactive customer engagement. Artificial intelligence includes many technologies such as voice recognition, natural-language processing and image processing. The rise of the internet, machine learning, and neural networks have led to the development of teaching computers to think and understand as humans.

A neural network is a computer system that is designed to work by classifying information just as a human brain does. Machine learning applications are capable of reading texts and working out whether a person who wrote the text is complaining or offering congratulations. Artificial Intelligence, with its promise of automating mundane tasks as well as offering creative insights, is a welcome boon for every industry.

Customer experience of the present and the future is dependent on the multi-channel predictive capabilities of an organization. A personalized and contextualized experience is the need of the hour. Therefore, organizations must learn to build a competitive advantage by planning and including new customer analytics techniques and data sources into their already existing analytics roadmaps.

• How AI-powered interaction analytics can transform the banking industry?

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• 5 advantages of using interaction analytics to improve seamless customer experience

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• What is customer journey analytics and why you really need it?

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/9-questions-cloud-service-provider/ Wed, 29 Aug 2018 09:22:11 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=2741 Data, especially big data, is growing at a rapid pace. It has reached a stage where enterprises aren’t able to function without it. But the only drawback they face with these piles of data is the large storage spaces they take up. This means a lot more infrastructure (read servers, databases/data warehouses). With a cloud […]

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]]> Data, especially big data, is growing at a rapid pace. It has reached a stage where enterprises aren’t able to function without it. But the only drawback they face with these piles of data is the large storage spaces they take up. This means a lot more infrastructure (read servers, databases/data warehouses). With a cloud service provider, it’s no more a hassle as enterprises are beginning to see the brighter side of this technology and are steering away from on-premise facilities.

While a cloud solution comes with a package of benefits, migration is a difficult process. It is bound to give you many sleepless nights before your decision is proven right. So, determine why you want to move your contact center to the cloud.

Now, to help you trust your move, here are nine questions you should ask your cloud service provider. This doesn’t just help you make the right choice but will also leave you with the satisfaction and peace of having made a future-proof investment.

“The worldwide public cloud services market is projected to grow by 45 percent in 2021 to total $302.5 billion”
Gartner

But first, who is a cloud service provider?

They offer network services, infrastructure or business applications on the cloud. These services have replaced hardware storage spaces and are hosted in a data center that can be accessed using the Internet.

1. Is this the right cloud solution?

With multiple cloud service vendors providing various service offerings, you have the liberty to ask them what applications are included in the entire package; if they are modular by design and if those applications are relevant to your business. Surely, not all enterprises need a video solution but a chat solution is an unspoken mandate for certain industries today. Therefore, investing in a complete package makes it easier for you during scaling.

2. How reliable is the cloud?

One of the major concerns of an on-premise solution is its budget restrictions to build a complete Disaster Recovery (DR) solution, be it at the application level or even when extending across geographies. This led to performance issues.


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Today, every cloud service provider promises an ‘n’ number of uptimes and has a published uptime guarantee. While this may sound good, it can also be a blanket statement. It does not clearly explain if it is for all applications, or just for the critical ones. Also, what are the critical applications and why doesn’t the uptime guarantee work on the others? Ensure you break down these questions for better clarity.

3. Is it scalable on demand?

In the case of on-premise solutions, it isn’t easy to predict and adapt to spikes in call volumes. Hence, enterprises either have insufficient or underutilized resources. But with the cloud, scalability on demand is a unique feature that must be explored. It is important to question and understand the process, time and conditions that apply to providing this functionality. This will help enterprises prevent last minute peak call conundrums.

4. What is the vendor’s expertise?

The skill sets required for a vendor of specific solutions vs that of a cloud service provider are different. For that reason, you should inquire about the vendor’s expertise in management, security, integrations, references, and local regional experience to ensure that the solution works together and not just on specific applications.

5. What is their relationship with the OEM?

The Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) platform is only as good as the expertise of the vendor handling the same. And it’s essential for you to know the relationship/partnership level the vendor shares with the parent OEM, the benefits, and the limitations.



6. Is the cloud customizable?

It is imperative to know if the cloud solution can be integrated with all your critical “cannot do away with” systems. It is at this stage you should question the options for customization, open APIs, standards tools and GUI.

7. Are cloud applications user-friendly?

Most on-premise solutions have separate interfaces for each application and the possibility of a combination of thick and thin clients. Check the ease of user interface; if it is a unified interface for all applications. This could thereby reduce your training costs and time. For example, a single sign-on option could make a distinct demarcation of access modes and privileges.

8. What is the cloud upgrade plan and how secure is it?

One direct question would be to check if there is a well-defined path for migrations and upgrades, else your customers might be in for a rude downtime shock. Another big concern for cloud solutions is about the security. So, clarify every doubt under the policies on customer information security, tenanting, transaction security, data protection, and security certifications that the solution claims to have.

“The cloud services companies of all sizes…The cloud is for everyone. The cloud is a democracy”
Marc Benioff (Founder, CEO and Chairman of Salesforce)

9. Can cloud applications be automated?

Automation is playing a big role in the way enterprises operate. Even though it is still a new concept, it is no surprise that it can be used in cloud technology too. But there are detailed questions you could ask your cloud service provider on the applications that can be automated, level of outside automation allowed, what functions can be automated and more.

While migrating to the cloud saves on infrastructure acquisition and maintenance, it should be based on your enterprise’s needs and not on outside pressures. And often it is questions that you fail to ask your vendors that can also lead to dissatisfaction and disgruntlement of your customers. Therefore, careful planning and due diligence must be done before making the jump.

Good luck on your cloud journey!

• How to deliver your omni-channel experience on the cloud?

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• Skyrocket the performance of your contact center on the cloud.

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• How Servion provides a unique approach to adapt the cloud?

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/motivation-contact-center-agent/ Wed, 22 Aug 2018 11:38:04 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=2677 Eons ago, E. E. Cummings got it right when he said, “Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit”. The adage still holds true. Being motivated continues to be essential to how people perform their jobs. It is especially relevant in the world […]

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]]> Eons ago, E. E. Cummings got it right when he said, “Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit”. The adage still holds true. Being motivated continues to be essential to how people perform their jobs. It is especially relevant in the world of customer experience. Because the human-to-human connection remains a crucial part of the service ecosystem.

In fact, Salesforce studies say that 83% of buyers always want to be connected to the most knowledgeable agent about their issues.

“Every contact center agent must have a personal action plan to align their work and commit to the plan”
Gartner

Sounds simple, doesn’t it, though? All you need to do is motivate your agents into giving your customers a great experience. Right?

Well, there is more to it than a simplistic equation.

Motivation is an internal drive or enthusiasm to do something. It can broadly be classified into intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation are factors that come from within us, like love for your job, being interested, challenging yourself etc. Extrinsic motivation are factors like, positive reinforcement in the form of rewards or feedback, monetary benefits, power etc. What drives you to complete certain tasks comes from a combination of all the above factors.

Self-motivation among the contact center agents will be consistent when they:

• Are not involved in redundant activities
• Have the resources to make independent decisions
• Earn the autonomy to solve problems

Technological advancements, product augmentations and automation will aid in creating this ideal work environment and thereby result in improved customer experience.

The three driving motivators for every individual

The job of a contact center agent primarily involves, having constant interactions with customers via voice, chat, email, and other mediums, solving their issues, clarifying their queries, giving support etc. This is a job that demands the agent to be, courteous, polite, assertive and empathetic at all times. They also need to maintain a calm demeanour, be flexible, be quick in problem-solving and have great attention to detail. Working in such a demanding environment requires a lot of self-motivation to fulfil their daily tasks.

According to Psychologist David McClelland in his theory of motivation, he states that every person has one of three main driving motivators, either the need for achievement, affiliation, or power. For every individual, these needs are acquired over time and life’s experiences. A person’s motivation and effectiveness in certain jobs are influenced by these three needs and people with different needs are motivated differently.



For a contact center agent, the need for achievement may come from completing a good quantum of daily tickets, being able to reduce the average handle time of customers with quick assistance, or not having any escalations on customer calls etc. These are individuals who yearn for regular feedback on their work to monitor their progress and to achieve the best results. High achievers should be given challenging opportunities and reachable goals with constant feedback on their progress.

The need for affiliation will come from aspects like, the contact center agent recognizing their role and contribution in enhancing customer experience, having a good rapport with their team, or deriving a sense of satisfaction from being able to solve customer issues. People with high affiliation will work best in a cooperative environment and will be team players.

A contact center agent with the need for power will constantly try to enhance their craft, align their role with the common goal of the organization, be an initiator who goes beyond the call of duty and looks for independence in making decisions. Individuals with a high need for power should be given extra responsibilities and work best when given an opportunity to manage others.

The difference between a motivated contact center agent and a demotivated one will be evident in the type of experience they are able to provide to customers. After all, contact center agents bridge the human gaps between customers and businesses. They should be naturally inclined to guide the customers in the right direction so that they get the experience they deserve. But first, they should give themselves the motivation they need.

The post How To Motivate Your Contact Center Agents To Unleash Their True Potential appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> https://servion.com/blog/accelerating-employee-engagement-in-the-digital-age/ Tue, 14 Aug 2018 09:33:03 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=2681 In the current climate of digital transformation, the influence of employee engagement on business impact has gone beyond the “happy people do better work” adage. The link between engagement (which is a critical performance indicator) and the company’s revenue goals has become stronger than before. This transactional nature of the relationship between the company and […]

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]]> In the current climate of digital transformation, the influence of employee engagement on business impact has gone beyond the “happy people do better work” adage. The link between engagement (which is a critical performance indicator) and the company’s revenue goals has become stronger than before. This transactional nature of the relationship between the company and the employee has metamorphosed into being more fulfilling and goal-oriented.

And one of the biggest reasons for this allencompassing change is digital transformation — not just in the workplace, but outside of it too.

We are not going digital. We are digital.

It is important to note that digitalization was not thrust upon unsuspecting masses. It just happened. People readily accepted it. In the business world too, the rise of the digital employee was not a calculated move by the employer. The world went digital, as did the psyche of the average employee. And this caused paradigm shifts in the way people perceived people-related processes, performance goals, training opportunities, workplace facilities, and organizational values. It is why these days if the company culture does not act as a catalyst for digital transformation, it invariably turns into a roadblock.

“Technology has accelerated the culture of engagement by providing the necessary tools for communication and collaboration”

Gone are the days when employee satisfaction was solely based on annual surveys. Engagement is not a one-time activity. It is a culture that is imbibed into the mindset of the employee. Therefore, successful companies are investing significant resources to build and deploy metrics driven engagement strategies. Once they gather the insights, they analyze the data to look for hidden pockets of disengagement — what worked, and what didn’t, over a period. After formulating clear action items based on these insights, the top management can take the initiative to drive company-wide initiatives to improve existing systems and assuage dissatisfaction.

Start from the top

Leadership is the mothership of engagement. It is the responsibility of top management to formulate, articulate, and initiate their commitment to driving people-centric values. Going beyond policy-making, they must reinforce through clear and persistent communication that the needs and concerns of the employee are constantly being taken care of. Unless the workforce has confidence in the ability of its leaders to keep them motivated and rewarded, they may not see eye-to-eye with the growth objectives that have been agreed upon.

Additionally, a core team of ambassadors must be created so that they can ensure that key messages trickle down to every part of the company.



What does technology have to do with it?

Technology disruption is no longer a mysterious figure that companies need to be wary about if they want to sustain a healthy level of engagement in the digital age. It has become an ally in ensuring that employees are productive, satisfied, and well. Of course, digital innovation does not create engagement. It accelerates the culture of engagement by providing the company with the necessary tools for communication and collaboration. Only when they have the platforms to connect with each other can they better understand the company’s vision, performance measures, and people-based processes.

From pre-onboarding to performance appraisal to tenure recognition, technology can help in kick-starting the progress of engagement, and then assess its impact on all employees.



Some of the tech-driven strategies to accelerate engagement include:

• Centralization of information through Intranets and closed-circuit portals for employees to pick and choose what they want to learn about the company
• Virtual instructions through preferred devices to better understand company processes
• Gamification to simplify knowledge acquisition and to make employees fully aware of their own progress
• Internal social platforms to strengthen employee bonds and enhance network connections
• On-the-job apps that increase user acceptance of training and development initiatives
• Collaboration platforms to host workshops and share best practices

Engagement journeys are different than one-time experiences

Given the availability of tools to gather insights on employee experiences, companies must focus on creating seamless employee journeys. They must consider every facet of their relationship with the workforce, and collect feedback on each one of them while aligning with global best practices. Keeping employees happy is a journey. It is not a series of one-time activities.

In today’s briskly-changing workplace, the onus on the sustenance of a healthy level of engagement is at an all-time high. A lot of things may have changed in the area, but the underlying principle remains the same — on any given day, an engaged workforce will outperform the one that is not.

• This article was originally published in People Matters

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/what-is-augmented-reality-cx-new-perspective/ Thu, 09 Aug 2018 10:08:52 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=2628 What if you were walking through a home furnishing store and stumble upon something you need. You are worried if making the purchase is the ideal choice because a) What if it doesn’t fit into your nook? b) Will the color match the rest of your furniture? c) Will it make the room more crowded? […]

The post What Is Augmented Reality And How Is It Giving CX A New Perspective? appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> What if you were walking through a home furnishing store and stumble upon something you need. You are worried if making the purchase is the ideal choice because a) What if it doesn’t fit into your nook? b) Will the color match the rest of your furniture? c) Will it make the room more crowded? Instead, what if you could get immediate answers to those questions by following the same process but the only difference – using your smartphone and staying at home. That’s how Augmented Reality (AR) is penetrating and obviously changing the market.

What is augmented reality? How is it making a difference?

Through the 90’s and early 2000’s, the two-dimensional television screen helped us physically experience instances that happened across the world. Augmented reality was once a cool feature that we read about or saw in movies. Now, it is revolutionizing the digital marketplace for many industries.

Augmented reality is the integration of digital information within the user’s existing environment in real-time. Smartphones combined with AR technology have brought customers into the era of next-gen experience and engagement.

“The worldwide market for augmented reality products will surge 80% to $165 billion by 2024”
Global Market Insights

Unlike virtual reality, AR superimposes new information and showcases an enhanced version of the current setting. Over the past few years, businesses have realized that AR offers more practical applications for CX. It is redefining the essence of customer satisfaction by creating gripping interfaces that cannot be ignored. Therefore, with the likes of Pokémon Go, Snapchat, Instagram and others, augmented reality is playing a pivotal strategy in the art of customer experience.

Is augmented reality disrupting customer experience (CX)?

The average millennial buyer is immune to mass-generated services or promotions. They are on the lookout for personalized experiences that appeal to their varying needs every time. Furthermore, augmented reality is a game-changer and is transforming the way businesses engage with customers. It can boost the power of CX when combined with other technologies, thus making it useful for many departments across different industries. And there are three reasons why it is making its way into every business’ strategy:

• Emotional connection:Whether it’s product or an experience, it is natural to form an emotional bond. AR technology can do the same by changing the way you feel and garnering the same emotions
• Access to information: Training and learning have become easier with AR. With readily available, easy-to-understand information, it promotes multi-sensory learning
• Creates imaginary environments: It helps users experience multiple scenarios in real-time and without developing prototypes. This leads to an increase in the number of potential buyers

5 ways to skyrocket customer experience | ServionWatch Video

Augmented reality in the customer journey

Analytics plays a big role in every customer journey, but there are value additions that AR can make to elevate CX.

Pre-Sale: The Analysis Phase

Decisions take shape here. As customers have instant access to information, there are very few impulse decisions taken. This is because they are well-researched since they want the best. And augmented reality makes this process easy.

a) No more apprehensive thoughts: E-commerce sites have made shopping simple, but questions about products are often unanswered until delivery. With augmented reality, customers can breathe a sigh of relief as interactive apps remove the uncertainty. It helps to modify the customer’s surrounding into virtual showrooms using visual aids overlaid on smartphones. For example, Ikea’s Place app allows customers to place furniture at their homes in full-scale before making a purchase.

b) Interactive advertising and packaging: AR has a higher advantage over other advertising forms. It is active, useful and involves the customer with the power of suggestion through experiential marketing. For example, brands are creating interactive visual experiences using packaging. Nesquik offers engaging games that can be played by pointing the smartphone at the packaging.



Sale: The Point of Purchase Phase

At this stage, customers have taken the decision to make a purchase but need a little extra validation. Augmented reality is frequently used in this phase and has really paved the way to drive sales.

a) Try before you buy: Can’t find the right shade of teal for a shirt? Scared to try a new hairstyle? AR-based apps let users take a virtual trial before making a commitment. It takes the guesswork out of choosing what works and what doesn’t. For example, The Dressing Room by Gap allows customers to select a garment from the virtual shelf. An AR-generated model having a similar body shape, tries the clothing. It can be rotated 360⁰ to give the shopper a better angle of the outfit.

b) Improve buyer experience: Augmented reality – it’s convenient and making the retail experience simpler. For instance, Samsung Mall allows users to shop using their phone camera. They just point, scan a product and hit search. Once complete, it displays the product information along with other similar products. Friends with Holograms is also building AR tools with the same functionality.

Post-Sale: The Support Phase

Should the experience stop after the purchase? It shouldn’t, and many businesses in the past seemed to have gone astray. Now, they are on the right path of upping their post-sales service as augmented reality has made this service seamless.

“By 2021, mobile augmented reality could become the primary driver of a $108 billion VR/AR market”
TechCrunch

a) User manuals and self-service: Say goodbye to bulky manuals. In the digital age, even 300-page documents are being given an uplift. Automobile brands like Hyundai have developed AR-based digital manuals. With a smartphone, users can understand the parts and workings of the car, such as what the switches can do, or how to change a tire or check oil levels.

b) Technical support: The miscommunication between agents and customers sometimes costs the brand their loyalists. With a powerful AR-based visual aid, this problem can be avoided. For instance, with visual support, users just need to hold a product to the smartphone camera and all parts are identified in real-time. Agents can then identify the model number of the device, leading to faster resolution times.

What is the future of augmented reality?

AR blurs the line between what is real and computer-generated by simulating what we experience and feel. Now, everything with AR is associated with a smartphone. But will it evolve beyond the world of screens? Is it really the next big thing in customer experience?

Some sources claim that in the next five to ten years, there will be a new set of interfaces that AR will offer. Thus, early adopters of this technology will have a better insight as they will be able to develop and change the way customer engagement happens. But in a world where personalization is most sought after, will billboards turn into blank canvases that can be altered for every customer’s needs?

• What makes emerging technologies the future of CX?

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• AR is the key to unlock the door to the future of CX

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• 10 customer experience trends to watch out for in 2018

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/customer-experience-lessons-taoism/ Wed, 01 Aug 2018 11:43:54 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=2536 Lao Tzu was an ancient Chinese monk who worked in the imperial library of the Zhou Dynasty in 6th century BC. Known as the founding father of Taoism, legends say Lao Tzu was born with white hair having spent eighty years in his mother’s womb. Well, what has Lao Tzu or Taoism got to do with […]

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]]> Lao Tzu was an ancient Chinese monk who worked in the imperial library of the Zhou Dynasty in 6th century BC. Known as the founding father of Taoism, legends say Lao Tzu was born with white hair having spent eighty years in his mother’s womb. Well, what has Lao Tzu or Taoism got to do with customer experience?

Taoism and Customer Experience (CX)

Taoism is a religious doctrine that is based on Lao Tzu’s philosophy. It emphasizes on living in harmony with the Tao – the source and substance of everything that exists. It is a system of belief, attitudes, and practices set towards the service and living of a person’s own nature. In short, Taoism is the ‘way to be’. While Taoism has been around for centuries, it offers valuable insights and lessons to today’s customer experience professionals. Here are a few lessons from Taoism that enterprises can apply to their customer experience strategy.

7 customer experience lessons from taoism

Lesson #1: Customers are to enterprises what Tao is to life


Customers are the raison d’etre of any business; they are both the source and substance of any business enterprise. Enough has been said and written about customer obsession and customer centricity of super brands like Zappos, Amazon and Apple. Customer Experience Management in isolation can become insufficient if the enterprise isn’t customer-centric. Like Taoism, customer experience is all about accepting your Tao (your customer) and giving a smile to enable possibility.

Add-on read: Here’s an insightful whitepaper on being data driven and customer-centric from Forbes.

Lesson #2: Seven billion paths
to customer experience


Taoism believes that there 7 billion people in this world and each one has an individual path to Taoism. Taoism teaches patience; they believe any process of learning and healing takes time. Akin to that, enterprises need to accept that there are 7 billion paths to customer experience. Each customer is unique, therefore their CX needs to be unique to their needs. Enterprises need to create a one-of-a-kind experience every time they interact with them. The experience needs to be personalized as customers have very little patience for businesses.

Lesson #3: Glimpsed only through its effect


Tao isn’t a thing; it isn’t an object. It has reality and evidence, but no action or form. It can only be described by the effects human beings are aware of. Similarly, customer experience is a not a project or a piece of software that can be procured from the market as a packaged software. It is a collection of every interaction between a customer and the enterprise across the customer’s journey. Customer experience projects should not just be measured in terms of standard contact center KPIs and metrics but also from a customer’s perception of how they experience it.

Add-on read: I had written a blog on four new critical contact center KPIs for CX success in the digital era.

Lesson #4: There is a Yin, there is a Yang


Taoism gave the world the Yin Yang principle. It speaks about forces, patterns and things that depend on one another and does not make sense individually. Some of these forces are conflicting and incompatible but when they are made to work together seamlessly, it leads to perfect harmony. Likewise, customer experience is made up of diverse groups of people, processes, and technologies. Bringing these disparate components together and making them work in harmony takes a concentrated effort. Enterprises get bogged down in overseeing these daily operations when they should be focusing on their customer. Meanwhile, customers don’t care about enterprise systems or processes, they care about how they are treated. Customer experience is not about being right always, it’s also about how businesses recover when things go wrong.

Add-on read: Micah Solomon on 7 rules of compensating your customer after a service or a product failure.

Lesson #5: Be aligned to the one


‘The one’ is the essence of Tao, it is considered the energy of life, and when you possess it you will be truly yourself. In the same way, every business and brand has its own personality. However, commoditization of products has eventually led to the commoditization of services and experiences too. By the time a new product or a service gets launched, competitors launch an indistinguishable version. Every time a customer interacts with a brand, they have an expectation of how that interaction should go. Most of the time there is a huge gap between what they expect and what they get. Businesses need to ensure their customer experience needs to be aligned to their ‘one’ – their brand promise – so that they deliver a consistent, yet unique customer experience.

Add-on read: Getting your CX to deliver on your brand promise: An action list.

Lesson #6: Great acts are made up of small deeds


A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Lao Tzu believed that great things had to start from humble beginnings. While this can be applied to almost every situation an enterprise might face, it fits like a glove when it comes to customer experience. Many customer experience transformation projects fail because of unrealistic and gargantuan visions that make it idealistic but unworkable. Large customer experience projects need to be broken down into smaller projects and executed one at a time.

Add-on read: 97% believed that delivering a great CX was critical to their business success. Only 37% of executives were just getting started on an improvement plan. Read oracle’s global insights in succeeding in the customer experience era.

Lesson #7: Wu wei and CX – the art of effortless effort


Have you ever seen a Tai-chi master move? He moves with grace, appears powerful – so effortlessly. Taoism believes in Wu Wei meaning ‘no-action’ or ‘actionless action’. It refers to a natural way to do things, as opposed to forced efforts. Customer experience has to be effortless – not just for the customer but also for the agent and other employees. This doesn’t mean that you don’t do anything, rather it means that customer service has to be an effortless activity. Outstanding customer experience has to be in the DNA of each employee rather than a forced activity.

Add-on read: CEB has been the pioneer in the concept of effortless customer experience.

Enterprises claim customer experience is a top priority yet most of them are not getting their CX act right. Where do you think they are going wrong? These lessons from Taoism might sound simple but they are difficult to implement. What challenges do you think enterprises might face while implementing them? Do you think they are relevant? Share your opinions with us.

• How Servion helped an american airline to improve their CX?

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• How to deliver omni-channel customer experience?

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• Servion helped a sports channel’s service center to provide better CX

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/what-emerging-technologies-future-customer-experience/ Wed, 25 Jul 2018 09:23:57 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=2389 In today’s digital world, the relationship between company and customer is changing dramatically, as customers face more choices and industries become increasingly commoditised. Now, consumers have the luxury of choosing where they spend their money, based on the customer experience they receive. As such, businesses are under immense pressure to get their strategy right first […]

The post What Makes Emerging Technologies The Future Of Customer Experience? appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> In today’s digital world, the relationship between company and customer is changing dramatically, as customers face more choices and industries become increasingly commoditised. Now, consumers have the luxury of choosing where they spend their money, based on the customer experience they receive. As such, businesses are under immense pressure to get their strategy right first time to foster customer loyalty.

A strong omnichannel customer experience has been shown to retain around 89% of an audience, compared to a 33% retention rate for businesses that fail to do so. In a world full of choice, businesses must continue to improve their digital accessibility if they are to remain competitive. Artificial Intelligence (AI), IoT (Internet of Things), and virtual reality (VR) can all help them to do so.

AI is upon us

Consumers are already becoming accustomed to interacting with chatbots and voice command devices – take the adoption of Amazon’s Alexa, for example. Therefore, it is only natural this should impact customer service. Many banks, for instance, are already using chatbots to provide 24-hour assistance. One example is Swedbank’s AI, ‘Nina’, trained to learn what customers want and how best to help them by assimilating website searches and contact centre enquiries. Servion predicts by 2025, three quarters of customer service interactions will be driven by such platforms.

“By 2020, 20% of companies will dedicate workers to monitor and guide neural networks”
Gartner

Based on ‘learning’ from past conversations, chatbots can predict the ‘next best action’, and can also handle transactional calls that would have previously been taken by a human. By recognising customer emotions – such as anger or frustration – chatbots can transfer callers to a human when required, giving customers a seamless experience. When it comes to AI, it’s a case of ‘when’ not ‘if’. It is predicted AI will power 95% of all customer interactions within five to ten years, with consumers expected to eventually prefer interaction with machines over humans. AI can be implemented by businesses to enable a much better customer experience both in the back office (call centre) and front office (online chatbots).

IoT s a phenomenon, extending into our business and personal lives; it is predicted that by 2020 there will be around 20.8 billion connected devices in the world, all offering streamlined and efficient ways to interact with brands and services online. It is important to note that on average, people use more than one connected device – all of which collect and store personal data.

Connected devices offer huge opportunities from a data perspective; this will have significant impact on how customers expect to be treated and what they assume that businesses will know about them. Organisations must harmonise and unify the data connected through each channel to give each customer the most personalised customer experience possible. By doing so, they can piece together a more accurate profile of their customers and identify exactly what they want and need, and when they want it.



Seeing is believing

Visual technologies are currently less common in customer experience than AI, but virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and holograms, will erupt. There are many (largely untapped) opportunities here, and businesses must start to embrace visual technologies if they are to stay ahead of the curve. Doing so will allow companies to showand not just tell their stories. For example, estate agents could save time and money by showing prospective home owners properties using a VR headset.

Visual aids are also improving the usability of apps and sites, where virtual assistants can show customers through a VR interface how to use a product or service. AR can also be used to overlay advertisements to make interactions with customers more contextual, relevant and location-based. In addition, hyper-connected contact centres are another way that VR and AR will benefit customer experience. For example, connecting an AR experience with a contact centre via a mobile device, will allow a customer to access a virtual product specialist to remotely provide live customer support.

The ‘Loyalty Factor’

Customer experience is increasingly important in today’s digital economy. By embracing AI to save customers’ time, utilising data from IoT, and investing in visual technologies to improve accessibility, companies will be able to significantly increase brand loyalty and engagement.

However, if businesses fail to adapt to the changing landscape, they will lose out on customers and therefore revenue. Our relationships with brands are irrevocably changing and businesses would do well to pay more attention to their customers’ ‘loyalty factor’.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/how-millennials-are-transforming-the-travel-experience/ Wed, 18 Jul 2018 09:54:09 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=2491 Millennials can no longer be treated as a generation of fresh-faced daisies, who are on the throes of entering adulthood. It is passé to assume that their purchasing power is limited to shopping on Black Fridays and Cyber Sundays. Because the average millennial is growing up fast. They are no longer people we can talk […]

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]]> Millennials can no longer be treated as a generation of fresh-faced daisies, who are on the throes of entering adulthood. It is passé to assume that their purchasing power is limited to shopping on Black Fridays and Cyber Sundays. Because the average millennial is growing up fast. They are no longer people we can talk down to, about how things were different back in the day. Pretty soon, they will be the decision-makers, who will be responsible for shaping the economy itself.

Today, the not-so-subtle changes can already be seen in the business of customer experience. Many are in their peak earning and spending years. They are disrupting everything that was once a norm, including the choice to travel – which has occupied a high position in the totem pole of their actualized needs.

“47% of young people aged 18-34 would rather spend their money on traveling than buying a house”
Realty Mogul

For many millennials, including myself, traveling is a way to experience life. It is not about moving from point A to point B – with a specific agenda in mind. Traveling has become our gateway into understanding how things work in the real world; a chance to unravel the secrets of happiness. Beyond materialistic purchases like expensive watches, automobiles, or jewelry – the thrill of gaining something or making a permanent change in life has taken the front seat in our list of priorities.

In the current experience economy, millennial expectations are transforming the travel industry. With retailization on the minds of virtually every industry out there, travel brands have no other choice but to jump on the bandwagon. Or else they just might be left behind in the race to delivering great experiences.

Four trends that are transforming millennial behavior

1) A bleisure to do business

Bleisure. Yeah, I know. What will we think of next?! But, mixing business with leisure is becoming popular with the millennials. An Expedia survey reveals – “employees under 30 are traveling 4.7 times per year on business compared to those over 30 years old who travel 3.6 times”. This proves that 62 percent are likely to extend their business vacations to experience the local surroundings.



2) Travel on a shoestring budget

If you thought millennials travel the length of the year and spend too much on it – you may have got it wrong. Many choose wallet-friendly options like hostels over hotels and backpacking over luxurious holidays. We make the most of our savings with the best deals we can find. As a generation that has grown up having experienced economic depressions, we have realized that things can be fulfilling yet inexpensive.

3) Travel-as-a-Lifestyle

Traveling makes us feel independent and individualistic. As millennials, we consider travel an integral part of our lives. We believe that experiences surpass second-hand knowledge. This is why we visit unconventional destinations to get out of our comfort zones and get a 360-degree experience. Not all of us want to visit popular tourist places and walk away with postcard experiences.

In case, TaaL becomes a popular buzzword in the future. Remember, you heard it right here.

4) Technology first

Over the last few years, we have taken the motif of travel to fit into our tech-savvy expectations. While a few may believe cutting off from humanity is the obvious choice to rejuvenate during a holiday, others opt for destinations with Wi-Fi and Internet access to stay connected. According to a report,” 70.9% of millennials consider free Wi-Fi as an important factor while choosing a rest stop during a vacation”. Similarly, doing it for the ‘gram has become a social norm where they are obligated to share travel experiences online along with reviews of their overall experience.


How self-service can empower travel companies to take offWatch Video

So, what can the travel industry do for millennials?

We want our travel experience to be close to perfect. We want brands to understand that our hard-earned vacations cannot go wrong. Hence, they must capitalize on the above trends if they want to be known for offering great customer service. More importantly, it is crucial for them to go the extra mile to keep us happy throughout the travel experience.

Customize service through social data

To provide millennials with a great experience, it is essential to know our behavioral patterns. Data mining tools can be used to seek insights from social media interactions and preferences. By linking demographics with interactions, customers belonging to different segments can be targeted for different campaigns. It can also be useful to offer suggestions on vacation spots we are likely to visit or the kind of travel information we may require through Next Best Action engines.

Demand for actionable information

We, millennials, are a new breed of travelers. We need to be fully aware and in control of our experiences. We seek transparent and real-time communication from companies at all stages of travel, from start to finish. Providing location-based recommendations and context-specific communication including flights, baggage, and even the weather can help travelers feel empowered to take charge of their overall experience.

“About 69% of travelers are more loyal to a company that personalizes their experiences both online and offline”
Google / Ipsos Connect

Gain from personalization

As millennials, we demand distinct experiences that reflect our personalities. Hence, with the help of analytics, travel companies can nail the hyper-personalization of service . Brands such as Airbnb have given travelers great freedom to customize holidays that suit personal tastes. With real-time data, personalization can be offered across the journey based on millennial needs, along with opportunities to upsell and cross-sell. For example, customers traveling to Singapore can be informed about a bigger package that covers Malaysia and Langkawi for almost the same price.

The travel industry has not fully adapted to the way millennials are perceiving the business of travel. Many still lag in offering a new-age experience that does not feel outdated at any step of the travel journey. Studies have shown it may be because of the extra expenses that travel operators need to incur while catering to a smaller select group with individual preferences.

But, it’s 2018. And there are no excuses for brands. Whether they want to admit it or not, millennials comprise one of the largest consumer groups. And the number has nowhere to go but all the way up. So, it’s time for companies to pay attention to how we want the travel experience to be.

• How Servion transformed a travel giant’s contact center into a CX hub

  Read

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/what-is-rpa-rise-robots-beginning-automation/ Wed, 11 Jul 2018 07:23:17 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=2443 “We are not progressing but technology does By that definition it will plod on by us The robots are taking over” The song titled ‘Robots Are Taking Over’ by The Streets echoes how technology is evolving faster than people. With automation getting the best of us, it might even be taking control of our lives. […]

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]]> “We are not progressing but technology does

By that definition it will plod on by us

The robots are taking over”

The song titled ‘Robots Are Taking Over’ by The Streets echoes how technology is evolving faster than people. With automation getting the best of us, it might even be taking control of our lives. Other pop-culture trends too have mirrored the same action where robots would one day begin to dominate. But in the business world, the automation phenomenon is taking the world by storm. Today many enterprises have developed cutting-edge platforms to replicate human intelligence in a manner that was unimaginable a few years ago.

From performing simple rudimentary tasks such as data entry, list management, or database management, robots are designed to work on more sophisticated tasks such as writing literature, composing music or even running an entire contact center. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is definitely a game changer and this technology has the potential to change the way we work.

“The Robotic Process Automation (RPA) software market will grow by 41% year-on-year by 2020”
Gartner’s magic quadrant

What is RPA and how is it different from other process automation?

Though process automation has been around for a while, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a specific type of automation. Robotic Process Automation doesn’t involve ‘robots’ in the physical sense. Instead, it makes use of a software with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine-learning capabilities to handle high volume, repeatable tasks that were previously performed by humans. In other words, RPA creates an intelligent software-based robotic digital workforce that automates repetitive manual data-intensive work. These functionally trained bots or virtual workers execute rule-based information processes, improving accuracy and efficiency.

Unlike traditional IT automation, RPA’s software has the ability to be aware of and adapt to changing situations, exceptions, and circumstances. Once the RPA software is disciplined to capture and interpret the actions of specific processes in existing software applications, it can then manipulate data, trigger responses, initiate new actions and communicate with other systems autonomously.



Should you invest in RPA?

The advantages of artificial intelligence and RPA are manifold. Besides the reduction in costs, lowering error rates, improving service, reducing turnaround time, and improving compliance there are other benefits as well.

• Better allocation of resources – While day-to-day tasks are taken care of by RPA, staff are free to apply their skills and abilities to support more complex and important business initiatives.
• Removal of routine repetitive tasks – Repetitive and rote tasks can be automated and this in a way boosts the morale of the employees. They can better utilize their skills to deal with more complex issues.
• Improved accuracy and reliability – With robots being programmed to follow set rules, there is little or no scope for error.
• Flexibility and scalability – Once the set of instructions is finalized and scheduled to be implemented at a particular time, it can be easily deployed. Moreover, it is also possible to reassign a process.
• Accuracy and improvement in first time processing – Most robots are transactional robots that can self-validate and have complex exception management strategies. Hence, they can be trusted to execute tasks more accurately.
• Speed to market – Responding to market dynamics, RPA makes it possible to automate new processes.

On one hand, the world is becoming digitally savvy and organizations should act quickly with foresight and innovation to meet the growing customer expectations. On the other hand, RPA is set to grow exponentially in the coming years. It is time for organizations to change their old ways of thinking and legacy systems and instead look at investing in technologies that help create holistic customer experiences.

• How AI-powered automation can drive digital experiences?

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• How virtual assistant harnesses the power by an AI engine to delight customers.

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• What does the future hold for robotic workforce supervision?

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/humanizing-technology-and-processes-in-the-world-of-hr/ Thu, 05 Jul 2018 09:57:16 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=2407 Reimagining the way employees are treated Employees are the lifeblood of any business. They make the magic happen for clients. And satisfied employees are more productive. It’s more than just about giving them perks, they need to know that you really care about them. And rest assured that they will stand by you and go […]

The post Humanizing Technology And Processes In The World Of HR appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> Reimagining the way employees are treated

Employees are the lifeblood of any business. They make the magic happen for clients. And satisfied employees are more productive. It’s more than just about giving them perks, they need to know that you really care about them. And rest assured that they will stand by you and go the extra mile.

There are no quick fixes or formulas to help you discover the right amount of engagement that’s necessary. You don’t need external sources to gain insights. The data is right in front of you. It is important for HR executives to observe and listen actively to employees. This gives employees the chance to express opinions, and be heard. While it may be an arduous process, it builds trust and ensures you are on track with getting to the root of the problem.

With the number of millennials only increasing, leaders including the CHRO need to stop thinking as individuals but as an environment that is purely built on ownership. It’s no longer ‘I have a problem’ but ‘we have a problem’. And the workforce wants to be more involved and entrusted with responsibilities. They don’t just want a paycheck or a bonus, but want to know what they are doing a daily basis has a purpose behind it, to make a difference and perform better when they are involved in aspects of the business.

“Highly engaged employees make the customer experience. Disengaged employees break it”
Timothy R. Clark

Employee satisfaction: How to overcome this challenge

Employees spend about a third of their time or more at the workplace and for this reason, it is imperative to cultivate a working environment that will help them perform better. While we know that the secret behind great customer service is a satisfied employee, employee satisfaction and engagement play a big role in how we work towards it.

Your staff needs to know how they are performing. By giving them constructive feedback, you can nurture and highlight areas that can improve their productivity. Regularly checking-in with employees will gauge satisfaction and maintain the loop of connectivity. This will lead to an increased level of trust and openness to keep the rhythm in motion.

But even if you encourage up-skilling or value them with monetary benefits, it should be noted that every employee has a definitive marker for progress on what actually counts as success. As satisfaction begets achievement, and achievement leads to confidence, all these should be connected back to the loop of making feedback a part of the work culture.



Trends shaping the future of the HR industry

The world of business is rapidly transforming while standing on the shoulders of giant technology advancements. With people at the center of these quantum leaps, the role of the CHRO has been quickly evolving too, from being traditional to a more evidence-based model. There will be a greater onus for HR executives to understand the market climate during times of bad economic weather, the impact of technologies such as AI and automation, and next-generation workplace measures around data security and employee safety.

The era of the Gen Z workforce is not far away, and hence the CHRO must be in a position to ensure that they are engaged even before the Day 1 experience begins. As user acceptance of social media keeps skyrocketing with each passing year, it will emerge as a powerful tool to assess both brands and employees alike. Considering the shifts in the modern employee mindset, performance assessment too will be reshaped as a continual and conversational review process – rather than a year-end rigorous activity.

Up-skilling will also see a transformation curve. Despite the need for in-demand skills, employee development will no longer be treated as on-demand requirements. Instead, the CHRO will nurture a culture of continuous development that need not be overhauled when the next big thing in technology becomes the in-thing.

Digitalization with a human touch

Gone are the days when being digital and being human were easily distinguishable, and they were treated as clear choices. With the lines blurring, it is now possible for the HR department to digitalize the people-driven processes while maintaining the human touch. The key is to understand the overarching purposes of HR-related technology, which are accuracy, productivity, and simplification.

Ironically, technology has made it easier to humanize the way people are managed. From Virtual Reality apps for prospective candidates to communication interfaces that ensure seamless remote collaboration and AI-based training modules, such technologies can personalize the employee experience.

However, it is also pertinent for HR professionals to implement new ideas to sustain the human touch in today’s digital age. For instance, enabling cross-functional mentoring programs, creating hot-desking opportunities, getting creative with employee engagement and recognition to reduce burnout and fatigue, and reinforcing workplace diversity and inclusiveness. All the above can, once again, be achieved by harnessing the latest technologies.

“HR organizations now have to learn how to ‘be digital,’ not just ‘buy digital products”
Josh Bersin

The merits and demerits of AI

AI is leaving an indelible mark in the HR sector, from talent acquisition and on-boarding to performance assessment and administration of benefits. Its robust analytical capacity are making things simpler for HR professionals as they work with significant amounts of people data. It alleviates the hefty burden of sifting through a sea of data and instead, they can focus on more high-value tasks that improve the overall employee experience. AI-led automation can also help in extracting valuable insights that may not be available when done manually. New age tools for sentimental analysis, career mapping, and goal setting reveal a 360-degree view of the employee, which goes a long way to aid the CHRO in taking affirmative actions to realize their true potential.

Furthermore, chatbots can be deployed through self-service platforms to dish out answers to everyday questions. They can act as a real-time conversational interface; once again, relieving the HR teams from the pressure of quickly fulfilling such expectations and giving them the opportunity to concentrate on critical tasks.

On the flip side, the HR sector has the unenviable task of leading the change in the mindset of employees when it comes to adoption of artificial intelligence. Industries across the world are abuzz with paranoia over the general loss of job security, and the fear of the IT workforce having to deal with tumultuous days ahead. Change may be a constant factor but seeing it through successfully does not get easier each time you initiate it. However, behind every threat lies an opportunity and vice-versa. Through AI-led innovation, the HR fraternity is all set to transform for the better.

• This is an exclusive interview which was originally published in BW People

  Read

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/customer-empathy-role-agent-interaction/ Thu, 28 Jun 2018 09:33:17 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=2366 In our daily interactions, communication has a huge role to play in the way the conversation pans out. With fluency of language, the right tone, and attitude, how many of us really make a connection with the people we interact with? That’s where empathy comes in. We spend most of our lives communicating with one […]

The post The Role Of Empathy In A Customer-Agent Interaction appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> In our daily interactions, communication has a huge role to play in the way the conversation pans out. With fluency of language, the right tone, and attitude, how many of us really make a connection with the people we interact with? That’s where empathy comes in.

We spend most of our lives communicating with one another, whether face-to-face, over calls, emails or social media. There is no denying that communication is an integral part of our lives and it is what makes the world go around. But, however, with the usage of technology, the emotional aspect or level of empathy is likely lost.

Studies support that it has become commonplace for contact center agents to not exhibit empathy consistently. With collaboration and interdependency being inevitable in an agent-customer transaction, shouldn’t enterprises also be paying more attention to the quality of interactions? Thus, it is crucial for agents to master empathy as a skill with each of his/her customers.

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, people will never forget how you made them feel “
Maya Angelou

What is customer empathy?

Empathy is the ability to identify, connect, and reciprocate the emotions of the other. Customer empathy, a subset of human empathy, is the skill of understanding how and why customers feel the way they do, by proactively listening and having the right attitude while personalizing the service and communicating effectively.

It is important to use customer empathy as a skill to value or respect the interaction. It can be enforced as an organizational value too. With metrics like Net Promoter Score, Customer Effort Score and Customer Satisfaction Score, that measure and track satisfaction, how do enterprises ensure that every agent interaction is always amicable and pleasant?

Here are a few tips that can help your agents empathize with your customers on the go.

Be aware

Awareness or the art of looking inward reflects a certain self-confidence that translates positively during interactions. Being in touch with our feelings and extending this empathy towards customers will establish an organic basis for all communication. Having a good understanding of one’s strengths and working on potential areas of improvement can increase self-confidence a great deal.



Listen, communicate and respond

• Listen carefully: Pay attention to what the customer is saying, it’s the best way to show empathy. This will help agents make the right decision and personalize the approach without leading to miscommunication. For instance, agents should listen to subtle clues about their mood and personality.
• Communicate honestly: Communication, as simple as it sounds, is more than just speaking and hearing. It is a multi-dimensional web including several verbal and non- verbal cues. Listening, understanding, paraphrasing, questioning and clarifying, body language and gestures, tone and clarity, eye contact etc. all encompass communication. An amalgamation of all these aspects in the right amounts will ensure effective communication.
• Respond positively: Language is an important part of persuasion. The ability to make minor changes in conversational patterns can help agents build positive vibes that can lead to happy customers. For instance, employing optimistic language cues can affect how the customer hears your response.

Empathetic statements that agents can use

Customers who feel that an enterprise isn’t empathetic to their needs think they don’t care about them. This could eventually lead them to take their business elsewhere. So here are a few sample statements that agents could use to raise their level of interest to the customer’s query.

• Can you please tell me a little more about the issue?
• It would be helpful if you could confirm my interpretation of your problem?
• I apologize for the experience you’ve had. We will definitely help you get this issue resolved.
• Is there anything else I can help you with?
• We really appreciate if you could give us your feedback to improve our services.

Customer empathy is more than just words. It is a genuine habit and the best way to prevent forced empathy is to learn how to use it in everyday situations. Being true to yourself and having a genuine approach while working with people will not only create a good experience for oneself but also a more cordial environment overall. As an inseparable part of customer service, it is the foundation for any business. Because a little empathy can go a long way towards providing great customer experience.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/5-ways-technology-insourcing-can-improve-customer-experience/ Wed, 20 Jun 2018 11:18:35 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=2348 Contact centres are a pivotal arena for customer interaction, where just one negative interaction has the potential to drive customers away. As a result, contact centres are under increasing pressure to deliver an enhanced customer experience and require an increasingly robust communications infrastructure. Organisations must be able to handle queries quickly and efficiently over the […]

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]]> Contact centres are a pivotal arena for customer interaction, where just one negative interaction has the potential to drive customers away. As a result, contact centres are under increasing pressure to deliver an enhanced customer experience and require an increasingly robust communications infrastructure. Organisations must be able to handle queries quickly and efficiently over the phone, through self-service forms, web, email, social media platforms and, increasingly, through new technologies such as Augmented Reality. Many major organisations are stuck in the past, or worse still – failing to use modern tools such as big data analytics, AI and social media. These organisations are missing out on vital revenue generating opportunities that are propelling their competition forward.

In order to meet these ever-increasing customer service expectations, many companies outsource their contact centre technology to Business Process Outsourcing organisations (BPOs). This can help to bring in cost efficiencies, but often results in customer dissatisfaction due to the inability of BPOs to support contextual problem solving. This way, the enterprise not only risks service quality – but it also endangers its customer experiences.

When critical functions such as Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems are outsourced to BPOs, they must also manage monitoring, reporting and staffing. This simply doesn’t deliver a sustainable competitive advantage; it is almost a third more expensive, compared to an in-house contact centre service. It also results in a loss of control over the underlying technology, presenting a challenge when monitoring quality. For many enterprises, the answer lies in re-evaluating customer experience to address the ever-shifting tech landscape. However, with contact centre outsourcing operations often broken down into micro-contracts, these strategies often require specialists with niche skills who are equipped to drive greater value than IT outsourcers.



Five factors driving the insourcing of contact centre technology

Many enterprises, in response to these issues, are now bringing contact centre technology in-house. This allows them to establish greater control over technologies, with skilled vendors supporting customer interactions. This results in superior reporting, better customer data integration, smarter channels of interaction, and empowered agents who can provide meaningful information immediately. Here are five key factors contributing to the rise in insourcing:

1. Increased customer expectations

Insourcing next-generation technologies can help enterprises engage customers more effectively and provide a consistent, contextual customer experience at every touchpoint – meeting the rising expectations of today’s customers. This must be accompanied by a careful consideration of what contact centre technology insourcing can deliver since it is imperative to ensure rapid deployment with seamless integration from back-end systems.

2. Increased control of IT functions

Businesses that insource critical functionalities and outsource routine IT tasks are better placed to choose vendors that provide flexibility, enhanced compliance and strict SLA adherence. They also have the advantage of being able to drive regulatory compliance, for example, where it is mandatory to retain certain data/functions in the home country. This requires the development of specific skills for operations and business support systems, as well as improved data and voice network capabilities.

3. Integrating assets and resources

Insourcing technology helps to integrate various assets and resources into a unified whole for optimal utilisation of assets, enabling improved customer experience and cost optimisation. A unified system can also provide enhanced insight into customer activity across all touchpoints and channels. This, in turn, drives a seamless and effortless customer experience, instilling confidence in the brand and increasing revenues. Insourcing necessitates a new operating model, which inevitably comes with the possibility of new operational risks, so careful planning is needed during the switchover.

4. Cost reduction

Outsourcing contact centre technology can actually result in an increase in operational costs; from the deployment of additional internal control mechanisms introduced as a result of poor quality standards from a BPO. Bringing customer experience technology back in-house will help to reduce costs. It would also turn the pricing focus onto investments in infrastructure as well as people, for instance, investments in the right hardware and software necessary to reduce call times.

5. The need for scalable technologies

Insourcing technology results in centralised management and scalability of contact centre resources, as and when needed. This reduces resource duplication across contact centres and eases the adoption of new technologies by spreading the cost burden over several months. Successful insourcing also means have a scalable staff and using highly skilled professionals who can take ownership of the environment. To allow for this, businesses must revisit their organisational structure, and ensure that contact centre staff and workforce management are adequately trained.

“The customer experience is the next competitive battleground”
Jerry Gregoire (former CIO – Dell)

In an increasingly commoditised world, the biggest challenge facing businesses is delivering an enhanced customer experience that enables differentiation. Businesses are realising this, and understand that keeping customers is more profitable than acquiring new ones. It is no longer enough to just have a phone line manned by an offshore team; consumers will not accept disjointed, bolted-on services that force them to repeat themselves and stay on hold for hours.

Consumers today already expect automated tills at the supermarket, automatic answers to simple queries on the phone and online, and automated payment at the car park – by the next decade they will expect so much more. Businesses need to start overhauling their contact centres sooner rather than later, in order to keep up with the latest technologies. Failure to do so will result in fragmented and frustrating customer experiences; resulting in customer churn, lost market-share and reputational damage. As a result, a business can suffer a deathly blow to its bottom line as customers hop to another retail store, bank or service provider.

Enterprises bringing contact centre technology in-house can ensure they deliver on their brand promise, by providing a better level of service. Businesses that can only offer the option of struggling against a simple, unintuitive chatbot or a labyrinthine phone menu, will soon find themselves left by the wayside. They must note, however, that transitioning multiple contact centres from offshore to onshore is a gradual process that requires the correct preparation to deliver omni-channel customer support and minimise disruption.

• This article was originally published in ITProPortal

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/how-cem-has-evolved-with-the-growing-power-of-the-customer/ Wed, 13 Jun 2018 04:59:55 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=2331 In recent years, technology has enabled a shift when it comes to the customer experience during a business transaction – no longer are businesses driving the relationship, it is the customer who is now in control. Businesses that fail to embrace new technologies will have even less control of the customer journey and will miss […]

The post How CEM Has Evolved With The Growing Power Of The Customer appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> In recent years, technology has enabled a shift when it comes to the customer experience during a business transaction – no longer are businesses driving the relationship, it is the customer who is now in control. Businesses that fail to embrace new technologies will have even less control of the customer journey and will miss out on future sales.

When we look at how things have changed, it’s clear the technologies that customers and businesses have access to, such as social media, data analytics, the Internet of Things (IoT) etc., have changed how transactions and communication between the two take place. So, in this new world of customer experience, what key shifts must businesses be aware of in order to thrive?

Access granted – the new power to access

The ‘power to access’ has shifted from the enterprise to the consumer in recent years. In the days of ‘walk-ins,’ enterprises had a lot of say in the time and manner of access and controlled this almost entirely, but now channels such as mobile devices and social media mean consumers are choosing when and how. As a result, businesses need to completely rethink how they interact with customers and what to say to them – and ensure they are available when the consumer does want to interact.

“Companies that excel at customer experience grow revenues 4-8% above the market”
Bain & Co

Listen to me, now! The power to be heard

Customers have also become a lot more vocal; just think about how consumers now choose to review businesses and how this has put a huge amount of information about the performance of a business into customers’ hands. Now, brands are being talked about more on social media and specially designed review sites – both positively and negatively. This highlights the importance of managing the online reputation of a business; even small amounts of negative publicity can affect sales. Although digital marketing has already arrived, digital and social customer care is becoming increasingly important. A report published by Nielsen showed that, on average, 47 percent of social media users engaged with brands over social channels – highlighting the need to monitor, analyze and communicate with customers effectively across all channels.

Customer is king – the power to demand

Another key shift centers on the availability of information about both businesses and customers, and how businesses need to treat customers differently as a result. Businesses must also harness the advent of high speed, high volume, and high velocity analytics which will help them to respond more quickly – which is vital given customer expectations for a response to a complaint is already less than an hour on social media. Marketers are calling this a ‘segment of one;’ in short, every consumer is the ‘center of a universe’ and businesses end up treating them accordingly by listening to every word they share.



The new world – the power of the IoT

The rise of IoT is also seeing the physical consumer world merging with the digital one, and data from both are likely to play a pivotal role in the future. Increasing numbers of connected devices – such as home automation systems like Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Echo – are enabling new ways of communicating with manufacturers, brands and service providers. In the future, businesses could be constantly receiving data from these devices and through the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning, know or predict what customers want without them having to communicate with the organization directly. Essentially, businesses will anticipate what a customer needs through the interpretation of data. As a result, businesses must learn how to communicate and create experiences with their customers through devices and communication platforms, rather than directly to the customer.

Today, consumers are already choosing how to control their relationships with businesses, which is forcing organizations to innovate their Customer Experience Management (CEM) approach. Enterprises must start to use new technologies – such as advanced CEM platforms, automation, and advanced analytics, to ensure they can track and communicate with customers – regardless of the channel being used. Those that do will reap the rewards by being able to communicate effectively and even predict future needs or demands from customers – thus ensuring they stay customers rather than leaving for a competitor.

• This article was originally published in Technology Marketing Corporation (TMCnet)

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/4-workforce-optimization-strategies-contact-center/ Wed, 06 Jun 2018 06:02:32 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=2288 Constantly evolving, contact centers have seen significant growth over the years and have become the ultimate hub of all customer interactions. While the adage, ‘the customer is king’ still holds true, we often forget to keep our employees (the agents who run the contact center) happy. Because it’s a simple equation, happy and satisfied employees […]

The post Four WFO Strategies that Positively Impact Your Contact Center appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> Constantly evolving, contact centers have seen significant growth over the years and have become the ultimate hub of all customer interactions. While the adage, ‘the customer is king’ still holds true, we often forget to keep our employees (the agents who run the contact center) happy. Because it’s a simple equation, happy and satisfied employees result in happy customers. This is where Workforce Optimization (WFO) plays a crucial role.

The workforce optimization (WFO) solution in a contact center is the console that oversees the performance of the contact center unit. Think of the contact center like a rocket ship. The infrastructure includes – the framework, propulsion system, engine, thrusters, boosters, the orbiter, and of course, the fuel. This is all plugged into and controlled by a large console which is the most important tool. Similarly, WFO is the secret solution that most contact centers use to function in a smooth manner and reduce any disruptions.

“By 2018 about 70% of organizations having 300+ agents will invest in workforce optimization tools in their next round of technology investments”
Gartner

What is Workforce Optimization (WFO)?

Contact centers are always in a tough spot because they need to navigate through complex gateways to bring people, process and technology together.

Typically, a workforce optimization suite has tools for workforce management, quality monitoring, speech and survey analytics, performance management and actionable insights. These insights provide the direction and guidance to overcome challenges.

In the recent years, given the changing role of technology in bridging the gap between brands and their customers, new expectations are being set for workforce optimization including achieving compliance with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard. Organizational WFO goals have shifted from being solely focused on operational efficiency to playing a critical role leading to better customer care.

So here are four strategies that can help your enterprise strike a balance between agent productivity and superior customer experience.



1) The art of self-utilization

While every enterprise attempts to maximize the efficiency of a company’s employees, given the increasing work that comes in, micro-managing each employee’s daily task is a challenge. In the same vein, giving agents the power of self-utilization to manage, document and improve their work schedules is the right step in the direction of improved agent productivity.

As workforce management solutions offer KPI dashboards and reports available through agent portals, agents will be able to manage their own performance, with strategic management inputs. Intuitive workforce optimization solutions empower contact center managers to modify reports without the need for expensive IT investments. And it drives the agents to make accurate business decisions quicker than ever before.

2) Harness contact center analytics from within

With a rapid growth in customer data, advanced forms of decision-making and analytics have made it to the forefront. World-class contact centers analyze customer feedback across multi-channel interactions to formulate proactive and future-proofed customer experience strategies.

Interactions within the contact center ecology still remain the most critical part of customer journeys. And today, it is possible to tell how the customer got there or what he/she may have in mind. By applying analytics to interactions, the agent is already prepared before answering the phone or replying to a text message or a tweet. They are able to learn from every interaction, and thereby, strengthen their own understanding of customer demands, and how to go about meeting them. Providing this level of empowerment through intelligent analytics will go a long way to improving customer retention, as well as reducing agent attrition.


How to become awesome at Contact Center Analytics? | Servion Watch Video

3) Quality management never goes out of style

Inspirational speakers tom-tom about how “Knowledge is power”. It rings true in the case of workforce optimization. A sound quality management process is both the parking lot and the penthouse to the foundation of customer support service.

With a proper quality management tool in place, contact center supervisors will have both a bird’s eye view and a ground-level perspective on the inner functioning of their support teams. It gives them the capability to review every voice/email/chat/social media interaction while helping them score the results against industry standards. This makes sure that agents receive both positive and constructive performance feedback. In turn, agents can also interact with the tool, and add their feedback to bring about a fair and accurate scoring system. This will make them feel more capable of doing their job right, in a collaborative fashion – each and every time.

4) Extracting social media intelligence

When social media was first launched, it was all about tracking old connections and sharing stories. Now, the average customer in the market is a social being. More so, digitally, as every like, share, comment or status, is valuable information for enterprises.

And that is why social customer care has become a concept of the present where agents are encouraged to be on social media to improve their productivity (if the role demands it). It is a part of the omni-channel experience that is in high-demand. Embracing social media tools is not just a burgeoning facet of customer engagement; one that can keep your agents abreast of the latest interaction technologies in the industry. Studies have shown that it also improves collaboration, enhances communication and eggs agents to identify with the brand on social media. It also results in boosting the morale of agents, who in turn, go the extra mile to satisfy their customers. Thus, playing an important in improving customer retention and reducing agent attrition.

“The adoption of WFO software has steadily increased in the past three years”
Gartner, Workforce Engagement Management Report

Benefits of implementing workforce optimization

WFO is the contact center’s answer to improving efficiency. It unlocks the potentials of agents and managers by inspiring self-improvement and strengthening quality management efforts. These tools don’t just help them do their job but enhance customer experience.

Here’s how implementing a WFO tool can skyrocket your business:

• Increase customer retention
• Transform contact center into an experience center
• Increase agent engagement and retention
• Deliver superior agent and customer experience
• Increased workforce efficiency
• Reduce costs and save time
• Discover root cause and full understanding of customer behavior through the journey
• Improved accuracy
• Receive valuable insights

Today, workforce optimization has become a necessity. As a key foundation technology, it features best-in-class solutions and have become more adaptive than ever before. They are allowing contact centers to pinpoint agent behaviors while playing to their strengths and weaknesses to predict optimal performance. As technology evolves, so will the impact that WFO has on overall customer experience. But at the end of the day, it should be seen as investment made for your agents, because they are the reasons your customers will keep coming back to you for business. And as the wise old men, and ancient proverbs dictate, sometimes “the only (customer) journey is the one within”.

• Workforce optimization strategy for contact centers

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• Our blog on how happy are your contact center agents

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/how-ai-powered-automation-drive-digital-experiences-right-way/ Wed, 30 May 2018 09:15:41 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=2268 As a forward-thinking enterprise catering to digitally-savvy customers, unless you have been living under a rock, you have probably invested in Artificial Intelligence-led automation technology to optimise and improve your conversations with customers. At the very least, you must have considered developing and deploying an automated solution in accordance with a brand’s unique needs and […]

The post How AI-Powered Automation Can Drive Digital Experiences The Right Way appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> As a forward-thinking enterprise catering to digitally-savvy customers, unless you have been living under a rock, you have probably invested in Artificial Intelligence-led automation technology to optimise and improve your conversations with customers.

At the very least, you must have considered developing and deploying an automated solution in accordance with a brand’s unique needs and goals, as well as those of your customers.

Not just because everyone else is talking about it, but the fact is that Artificial Intelligence and automation play a vital role in driving great experiences. It is no longer about future-proofing – it has to be done, right here and now.

“The future cannot wait, neither can the present”

Today’s digital customer is spoilt for choices. Irrespective of what you offer them, there is always a competitor lurking, looking to offer the same, except that they promise a better, quicker and more seamless experience.

Digital journeys that customers embark upon, not the siloed interactions, are being firmly established as the most important focal point, and even a single misstep can result in a broken experience.

This has led enterprises to turn to AI and automation in order to shape a customer experience ecosphere. But, it has become passé to refer to these technologies as the Next Big Thing. They are already giants, and are standing on the shoulders of other giants to oversee daily operations, be it within an enterprise’s backend technology framework, or in the channel’s front-end experience.

“Over half of all customer interactions happen during a multi-event, multi-channel journey”
McKinsey & Company

Five reasons why you should give automation a serious thought

• It ensures efficiency and cost-reduction of operational processes
• It turns deep-dive behavioural analytics from AI engines into valuable business and marketing insights
• It helps design consistent and memorable experiences across your suit of products, services and / or solutions
• It creates higher customer lifetime value
• It minimises the total cost of retention of existing customers and for new customer acquisition

Destination unparalleled experience

These are great reasons to make automation one of your primary customer experience goals. This is why many enterprises rely on it to drive and manage digital conversations with their customer. Today, technology automation has turned reactive contact centres into proactive customer engagement hubs. It is breaking down barriers such as expensive hardware, and limited bandwidth while enabling personalised customer experiences.

Whether enabling a rule-driven approach to eliminate redundancies, deploying email and chat automation to answer queries and solve customer concerns, or creating geo-agnostic monitoring and control paradigm – enterprises are scaling up the adoption of AI to deliver faster and effective customer service.

“25 percent of customer service operations will use virtual assistants by 2020”
Gartner

However, in the era of digital conversations, there are several myths about the role of automation and AI in the customer experience world. If these are not busted, enterprises might find themselves caught between a rock and a hard place while seeing the fruition of their investments. To unlock the potential of automation, the issue must be dealt with like any other software development process. It should include documentation of requirements, scoping, acceptance testing, validation, support and revision tracking.

Five crucial steps to take before implementing automation

• Charter a concise and practical roadmap to determine which of your processes are suitable for robotic process automation and whether there is a software/tool that is already available for the activity you are trying to automate
• Document the information needed to choose the right tool. You must understand the differences in technical functionalities of the robotic process automation tools to select the right software platform. Remember, there may not be a single tool that caters to all your requirements
• Equip your teams to prepare for operational changes. Firstly, formalise your IT teams’ involvement as early as possible. Then, identify and build the necessary skills and provide enough training to the workflow automation
• Ensure that your environment is standardised to handle automation by carefully defining a regular review process. Use dashboards and enforce high quality control standards to continuously monitor improvements.
• Calculate the estimated return on investment of automation to understand the time and effort spent as against the time and effort saved

AI-powered automation goes beyond the lack of choice that enterprises have in meeting the expectations of their millennial customers. It is not merely a collective reaction to the changing purchasing behaviour. It is rather a proactive effort taken by enterprises to be mindful of expectations set by their customers, and to meet them gregariously so that they keep coming back.

If done right, the right experience will always reach the right customer at the right part of the journey.

• This article was originally published in YOURSTORY

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/why-how-what-real-time-contact-center-monitoring/ Wed, 23 May 2018 11:03:04 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=2199 A growing number of customer-centric organizations are starting to monitor and harness analytics to continuously improve how they manage contact centers. Commonly referred to as real-time contact center monitoring, these solutions are now becoming the holy grail of customer experience management. Real-time contact center monitoring enables you to keep your fingers on the pulse of […]

The post The Why, The How, And The What Of Real-Time Contact Center Monitoring appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> A growing number of customer-centric organizations are starting to monitor and harness analytics to continuously improve how they manage contact centers. Commonly referred to as real-time contact center monitoring, these solutions are now becoming the holy grail of customer experience management.

Real-time contact center monitoring enables you to keep your fingers on the pulse of your contact center while improving the quality and consistency of customer service. It can directly influence your operational efficiency and agent performance and transform the way you deliver customer experience.

In order to understand real-time monitoring in contact centers, it is pertinent to logically break it down into 3 simple parts:

• The Purpose – WHY should you invest in real-time contact center monitoring?
• The Process – HOW can you get started?
• The Payback – WHAT are the likely business benefits?
“By 2020, the demand for an omnichannel customer experience will be amplified by the need for nearly perfect execution”
PWC

Part 1: The Why

The purpose of real-time contact center monitoring

Contact centers are high-demand environments that are abuzz with action. Agents are busy doing what they can do to keep customers happy. Supervisors are forever on the go, managing and coaching agents, and handling demanding customers. In addition, they own the daunting task of monitoring everything that is happening.

Given the number of variables that govern daily operations, contact centers are perpetually bursting with big piles of numbers such as performance metrics that include Key Performance Metrics (KPIs), reports and more. Here are a few critical reasons why getting a real-time view of all this data is fundamental to any business in today’s digital climate:

• Gain a broad, holistic and current view of your contact center operations
• Paint a transparent picture of performance across sites, functions, levels, and agents
• Measure performance against business objectives and targets
• Uncover hidden patterns and unknown correlations. Make informed decisions
• Fine-tune contact center operations for peak performance
• Get the best out of agents by maximizing agent performance
• Build happy customers – eventually leading to superior customer experience
• Discover new revenue opportunities – drive profits


Part 2: The How

The process of getting started with real-time contact center monitoring

Data from most contact center sources are raw. It needs to be transformed and linked with data from other sources before you can understand the context. Therefore, to monitor your contact center in real-time, you need performance management systems that can integrate the in-place contact center technologies, CRM systems and other data sources to provide a transparent view of performance.

There are many vendors who will claim they have the right tool for real-time monitoring in contact centers. But, as the number of options increases, it gets confusing. How do you then pick the right real-time contact center monitoring solution that fits for your purpose? Use this 10-point check-list to gain confidence that you are on the right path.

1. More options may not always lead to more possibilities. So, set evaluation criteria that shrink the number of choices

2. Pick a purpose-built, horizontally specialized operational intelligence platform (something designed for the contact center) instead of a generic fit-for-all monitoring solution

3. Look for a solution that will allow you to detect and respond to issues that are present and to those that are likely to emerge

4. User experience makes a big difference. The solution must have BI tools that allow you to drill down data, create custom dashboards using widgets, and create stunning visuals in the form of charts, videos, and graphs

5. It is important that solutions evolve and scale along with your operations. Check if it is available as-a-service on the cloud

6. Most managers these days are mobile-enabled data sifters. You should be able to access reports on the go, on mobiles, tablets, and other hand-held devices

7. Sometimes you might have to share specific dynamic reports without giving away full access. It is commonly referred to as a permalink. Sharing reports as a link should be a breeze

8. Select a solution that natively supports and compliments your existing contact center infrastructure

9. The solution shouldn’t require you to train your supervisor. Instead, it should come with simple GUI to build custom dashboards that don’t require any coding

10. Look for a specialist in your industry with deep domain understanding of contact centers and customer experience management. Preferably someone who offers a suite of integrated solutions instead of piecemeal solutions


How to become awesome at Contact Center Analytics? | Servion Watch Video

Part 3: The What

The payback you are likely to receive as business benefits

Customers expect an outstanding customer experience each time they interact with you, increasing the need for situation awareness in daily operations. Nobody has the patience to wait for days or weeks to analyze transactions and data – they want it now!

Real-time contact center monitoring will enable you to exactly do that – in full context quickly and instantly.

Companies that deploy these solutions often reap the following benefits:

• Gain business insights in real-time; improve decision-making capabilities
• Tap on the pulse of the contact center; anywhere, anytime and on any device
• Get a holistic 360-degree visibility
• Improve agent productivity; coach them and keep them motivated
• Improve supervisors’ efficiency; make jobs easier, reduce the manual load
• Improve critical SLAs metrics; reduce abandon rates, average hold time, average handle time
• Reduce operating costs; increase profitability
• Be data-driven; ensure compliance and reduce risk
• Respond quickly to emerging situations

If you would like to know more about real-time monitoring or simply how to improve your contact center performance, our CX consultants will be happy to connect with you.

• Get real-time monitoring through our ServInsights platform

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• How better insights helped a top telecom provider to transform CX

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/chatbots-importance-customer-journey/ Tue, 15 May 2018 06:22:48 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=2134 Recent technological advancements are changing how customers interact, not just with brands but with each other. With digital engagement channels enabling social interactions, the world of customer experience is being reimagined. There is lesser elbow room for any missteps in delivering great experiences. These days, customers expect quicker responses than ever before. Faster resolutions to […]

The post Why Chatbots Should Be In The Driver’s Seat Of Customer Journey appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> Recent technological advancements are changing how customers interact, not just with brands but with each other. With digital engagement channels enabling social interactions, the world of customer experience is being reimagined. There is lesser elbow room for any missteps in delivering great experiences.

These days, customers expect quicker responses than ever before. Faster resolutions to their problems. They have grown accustomed to personal communication platforms (WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, etc) that are flexible, lean and proactive. Unless brands can create personalized and seamless journeys, their services would not be of much use to customers.

The clincher is that today, there are no excuses for brands to resort to archaic ways of interacting with customers. With the artificial intelligence-led advancements in areas of machine learning and deep learning, they are in an enviable position to digitally transform their service ecosystems by deploying chatbots.

“85% of all customer service interactions will be handled by Chatbots by the year 2020”
Gartner

While chat sessions between customers and humans were always a part of the customer service journey, they often did not exhibit the same experience as for a voice interaction. Chatbots are slowly becoming a game changer for enterprises not only to enhance their customer’s experience but also to build their own brands.

With the global smartphone penetration is expected to cross 65% in 2018, access to data and hence chatbot either on the web, mobile apps or messenger apps will become the epicentre of customer care and experience strategy that enterprises will have to device. This powered by AI driven machine and deep learning algorithm will ensure that the bots can communicate as well as we humans do.

What are chatbots?

Simply put, a chatbot is a next-generation AI-based tool that interacts with users using a chat interface. Powered by AI and natural language processing, chatbots understand user requests – whether solutions to daily problems, business-related queries or social queries – and communicate to them via web and mobile-based interfaces.


Virtual Assistant – powered by Artificial IntelligenceWatch Video

How do chatbots work?

A chatbot, like any other app, has an application layer, a database, and specific APIs to call external service. However, its user interface is replaced with a chat interface. Companies, deploying chatbots, have vast conversation logs that developers use to analyze what customers want. With a combination of machine learning models and in-built tools, each question a customer asks is matched with the best possible answer. The chatbot is then fed with thousands of conversation logs, and from these logs – it can map questions with right answers.

Major types of classification

Patterns: Used to classify text and produce a suitable response for customers. A standard structure of these patterns is “Artificial Intelligence Markup Language” (AIML). The chatbots only respond to associated patterns, they cannot go beyond it.

Algorithms: In the above, for each question – a unique pattern must be available in the database to provide a suitable answer. With lots of combination of patterns, it creates a hierarchical structure. To reduce complexity, algorithms are used to reduce the classifiers and produce a more manageable structure. This approach is known as the ‘reductionist’ approach.

Artificial Neural Networks: Neural Networks can help in calculating output – using weighted connections which are calculated from repeated iterations while training the data. Each step through the training data amends the weights – resulting in accuracy.



Natural Language Processing: Chatbot combines some of the steps given below to convert the customer’s text or speech into structured data that can be used select the related answer.

(1) Sentiment Analysis – tries to learn if the user is having a good experience or whether it should transfer to a human agent

(2) Tokenization – divides a string of words into tokens that are linguistically symbolic or differently useful for the application

(3) Named Entity Recognition – looks for keywords such as the name of the product, user name or address, whichever data is required

(4) Normalization – processes the text to find common spelling mistakes or typographical errors that misintepret user intent

(5) Dependency Parsing – searches for objects and subjects (verbs, nouns, and common phrases) in the user’s text to find dependent and related phrases that users might be trying to convey

Database: The knowledge base feeds chatbots with information needed to give suitable responses to customers. With customer data captured in the database, NLP translates human language into information with a combination of patterns and texts which are mapped in real-time to find responses.



How chatbots can improve the customer journey

A customer journey map is a visual representation of every customer interaction. However, they are no longer simple to map and deliver. Customers move fluidly between channels and devices (online and offline), but they still expect personalized services. Communicating with them in the right place, at the right time, has become a challenge and an opportunity.

It is where chatbots come in.

They enable brands to create successful omni-channel customer journey. By handling increasingly complex tasks, and managing interactions that are more credibly ‘human’, they empower service representatives to take on more value-driven tasks. This results in customers having their expectations met, no matter the channel of their choice.

Steps to personalize chatbots across customer journey

• Ensure availability of high-value content – chatbots are highly intuitive, and they need information immediately so that they can search and provide useful content according to the interaction
• Address customer requirements – chatbots should be able to frequently tap into stored FAQs or access CRM initiatives with past conversations with customers
• Speak the language of the customer – a good chatbot should be able to provide cross-channel and multi-language support
• Track and segment customers – chatbots should provide personalized solutions by segmenting customers based on their profiles and behavioral patterns
“Technology, through automation and artificial intelligence, is definitely one of the most disruptive sources”
Alain Dehaze

Advantages of chatbot-driven customer journey

• Effective handling of repetitive customer queries that saves time for the customer, and reduces effort in providing service
• Instant personalization of interactions based on customer analytics
• Ability to handle multiple customers at one time, without human assistance
• Availability of 24/7 support service, without any restrictions on time zones or operating hours
• Valuable insights into customer purchasing behavior by using order histories and making suggestions for the next order
• Bottom-line reduction in costs and resources

In this increasingly fast-paced world, competitive differentiation is all about providing the best possible experience in every step of the customer journey. Time is certainly running out for those who remain skeptical of the business impact of using chatbots to drive these journeys. After all, it is a bot-eat-bot world. Unless brands have chatbots by their side, to guide customers through meaningful and sustainable journeys – they just may lose out to the competition.

• Are chatbots really transforming business?

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/improve-experience-decision-making/ Thu, 10 May 2018 10:12:59 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=2085 This is part two of a five-part series on the importance of Behavioral Experience, and the impact it can have on our professional lives. Read part one. As author CS Lewis once said, we live in a world where every road forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork, […]

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]]> This is part two of a five-part series on the importance of Behavioral Experience, and the impact it can have on our professional lives. Read part one.

As author CS Lewis once said, we live in a world where every road forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork, there are decisions to be made. But, most of his characters lived in a Wonderland. Out here in the real world, decision-making is not as easy as following the rabbit.

Decisions, decisions. We all make them. Whether you are talking to your customers, your stakeholders, your teams or even yourselves – in front of the mirror, decision-making is a pivotal part of your daily lives. Especially, in your journey as a working professional, it can create momentum just as quickly as it can bring things to a screeching halt.

We create road-maps with every decision we take. Sometimes, we treat them as if they are our blind dates with destinies. It is because we are not always in control of what happens. Unsure if these decisions are going to have the desired impact, we turn to haste and lose the plot of the consequences.

“Wherever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision”
Peter Drucker

Decision vs Destiny

Would you rather believe in decisions or destinies? Which one do you think has a better chance of giving you the best possible life experience? The plain truth is that we cannot be sure if it will work out the way we want it to.

For instance, think of a client-facing decision you have had to take in the recent past. I am certain you would have had to answer a few of these questions.

• What is the biggest competitive differentiation I can highlight?
• When should I talk about the other partnership opportunities?
• Should I connect them with the sales head as soon as I can?

Perhaps, you are on the verge of deciding on a prospective service vendor. I imagine you have had to ask yourself a different set of questions.

• Do they have a list of reputable clients?
• How quickly will the vendor be able to finish the project?
• Should I double-check the references, just in case?


First and foremost, once you have taken the decision – it is important to come to terms with it and get going in the direction it has created for you. At times, things might go wrong down the road, and you may convince yourself that the blame should squarely fall on the domino effect of a poor decision.

But, like how goals need to be adjusted based on the environmental changes, it is your responsibility to rework decisions. When the situation calls for it, corrective actions must be taken. Even a quick change in plans or a fresh start. The best part of the decision-making process is that you will learn from it, irrespective of the quality of the results.

Not every candidate, customer or vendor will pan out the way you had intended them to, but it does not mean that it can be attributed to a single decision. You must ask yourself if there is anything you could have done after you realized that the expected experience was unlikely.

After all, “what is the point of having freedom, if you do not have the freedom to make mistakes and learn from it”.


How to make hard choices | Ruth ChangWatch Video

Aim for the head, touch the heart, go for the gut

Decisions must integrate the three elements. The head (represents logic), the heart (emotions), and the gut (impulsiveness/intuition). While the brain is the source for all three, it is good to separate them so that you are aware that there are individual factors that should be considered.

When you decide carefully and consciously by using all these elements, you are empowered to create success. More importantly, to keep it.

It is also pertinent to avoid emotional tagging of your decision-making processes. Like how you tag your friends on Facebook, your brain tags emotions to every decision too. It instantly recalls previous instances that had these exact tags and the outcomes that came from it. While it can provide information on likely scenarios, you cannot assume that two similar events, at different time periods, will give the same outcome – based on similarity of the decision.

“Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach”
Tony Robbins

Learn and grow

Effective decision-making happens to be one of the most vital leadership competencies in any domain or industry. The reason for it is that as you grow in your career – your decisions are expected to get sharper, more focused and success-oriented. In fact, inhibitors such as overthinking and being highly influenced by emotions are known to be traits of a non-effective leader.

The good news is that it can be developed and improved upon. There are various schools of thoughts that can guide you through the experience of what it means to take a constructive decision-making. From Dr. Robert Cialdini’s Six Principles of Persuasion to Jonah Lehrer’s neurological explanations on How We Decide, there is a sea of material out there.

If you are wondering about which one to start with, here is some advice to help you in taking that decision.

Don’t go in search of the rabbit!

Evaluate, decide, learn and grow… today.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/intelligent-automation-redesigning-workplace/ Mon, 07 May 2018 11:17:43 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=1928 An intelligent automation platform is just an automation platform, right? Well, that’s not quite the situation today.  The fact is that mapping is quickly being done within the RPA industry between two types of automation. Based on this, companies can deploy and simultaneously create an unified and integrated RPA platform. Marketplaces are becoming more connected […]

The post Is Intelligent Automation Redesigning The Workplace Of The Future? appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> An intelligent automation platform is just an automation platform, right? Well, that’s not quite the situation today.  The fact is that mapping is quickly being done within the RPA industry between two types of automation. Based on this, companies can deploy and simultaneously create an unified and integrated RPA platform. Marketplaces are becoming more connected with increased complexities; thus automation platforms are able to cut through these complications and take up a more nuanced approach.

RPA solutions are beginning to mainstream in the Indian back office support industry. We are at the cusp of a fundamental shift in how a modern workplace operates. Technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, and data analytics are taking over a lot of the human work.

“There is a definitive shift to RPA for consumers and business applications and is expected to grow to an $8.7 billion market by 2024.”
Grand View Research

A quest for scale, speed and cost saving:

The challenge for businesses now is how to profitably deliver their services to the customers while dealing with rising expectations and dynamically shifting technology landscapes. The suffusion of AI over related IT tech into the 25 year-old BPO industry is bringing to the forefront opportunities for back-office businesses. In the past, managers used to use algorithms for only high volumes and repetitive tasks. The initial phase was predominantly about pushing the non-core work to cheaper end points over high speed communication channels. Now, intelligent automation technology can eliminate process time by 50 percent with at least 5% of all occupations.

For example, a leading managed services provider that catered to a big industrial enterprise was facing a huge challenge. Agents were handling over 15000 calls a month and spent an average of 6 minutes on user administration tasks by toggling between systems to get access to information. Using an automated solution, tasks were completed in less than 50 seconds, which resulted in an 83% reduction in execution time. Deployed in a span of two weeks, it led to an estimated annual cost saving of over €1 million.

Similarly, a top-tier financial services organization – managing the savings and investments of 400,000+ customers – deployed an automation solution that resulted in a projected annual saving of £1.5 million.

The economic fruits of intelligent automation will extend far beyond savings in human labour. It will free up the employee to focus on and get reskilled on work of higher value. More than scale, speed or cost saving, there is no replacement for the value of expertise lent by human intervention.


Virtual Assistant – powered by Artificial Intelligence | ServionWatch Video

Attended RPA vs Unattended RPA:

Attended automation is carried out at the workstation level. Also, termed as desktop automation, assisted automation or software assistants, it involves a software robot that performs definite actions while complying with business logic. Humans control the entire process and govern when the transactions should progress. The bot reads the contents of the applications, locates fields that contain the assigned data and performs the tasks as per the rules assigned at the start. It can also verify data and other programmed activities.

The bot can return control to the person at the workstation, i.e. if the last action before closure requires decision-making from a human. This might defer in each industry. For example, in the banking and financial services industry, during inbound calls, tasks are initiated by an agent but then transferred to a bot to furnish the necessary details before it is handed back to the customer care executive.

Attended process automation has a strong role to play in front-end and back-end activities of a contact center, as it lightens the load. It assigns smart desktop robots to mimic human activities and runs as a background application to offer the best insights at the exact moments when they are needed.

Zoom Image

At the helm of the workplace wheel:

Leadership underpins whether the new-gen model of operating the workplace becomes a reality or remains just an aspiration. How to go about scaling a digital workplace model across the entire businesses? Or setting up teams in a digital world? Their roles must deal with forging alignments at all levels of the organization, championing disruptive models that embody agility and speed, and anchoring transformation through effective, albeit bold decisions.

Leading ecommerce giants like Amazon and Walmart have been leading the charge towards automation. With intelligent automation applied across their warehouses, for the retrieving and packaging process, they have roughly saved about $22 million at each center. IKEA one of the leading furniture retailers, that specializes in ready-to-assemble furniture has been expanding the use of automation in all their offices. With an automatic delivery scheduling system, it has successfully reduced handle time by over 66% and has a 100% SLA goal by delivering a high quality of work with error-free execution.

“By 2020, 86% of companies say they will hit ‘breaking point’ & will need intelligent automation to keep up”
ServiceNow

The future of creativity in every workplace

Capabilities such as sensing emotions and creativity are core to human beings, and their experiences. These are difficult to automate. Ironically, the amount of time employees spend on activities that require these capabilities are low. For example, just 4 percent of the work activities across the US economy require creativity at a median human level of performance.

Even though this remains a standalone robot, all intelligent automation is “attended” at some point or another. Since it needs the supervision of people to ensure the operation is successful or if it doesn’t resume the process from the point where the problem occurred.

Conclusion:

Be it attended or unattended, all process automation involves human interaction. The bigger challenge is to decide what to automate. Be it a bank, hospital or a mobile services company, as customers consume newer channels of engagement, the question of whether the technology should be a long-term investment is most pertinent. With attended process automation, it can uncover opportunities to optimize the processes in real-time – moving higher end decision to the humans and leaving the mundane to the robots.

As attended RPA assists a human at the workstation and saves valuable employee time, wouldn’t we all want our own robot helper all the time?

• Want to begin your journey for intelligent automation? Meet us at NICE Interactions 2018 in Orlando, May 15-16! 

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/how-artificial-intelligence-can-make-2018-the-year-of-the-customer/ Wed, 02 May 2018 09:59:16 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=1715 The year 2017 saw both techno stalwarts and start-ups jumping into the AI ecosystem. Suffice to say, Artificial Intelligence will begin to permeate every application and service at some level in the year 2018. According to Gartner, “The year 2018 will mark the beginning of a democratization of AI, extending its impact across a much […]

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]]> The year 2017 saw both techno stalwarts and start-ups jumping into the AI ecosystem. Suffice to say, Artificial Intelligence will begin to permeate every application and service at some level in the year 2018. According to Gartner, “The year 2018 will mark the beginning of a democratization of AI, extending its impact across a much broader swath of companies and governments than previously”. This indicates that AI will be included in the top five investment priorities that CIOs make during the year.

Go Cloud, Go Smart

AI technologies, especially machine learning and deep learning, will emerge rapidly to add more power to the cloud. The amalgamation of cloud computing and machine learning will result in ‘the intelligent cloud’. Serving as a self-learning platform, it will be able to perform tasks more accurately and efficiently than ever before. This is likely to be the era of the ‘next-generation cloud’ one that provides scalability at a low cost, for storing and processing large volumes of data.

“The key to artificial intelligence has always been the representation”
Jeff Hawkins

Talking about conversational interfaces

The past year, many vendors have been successful in applying conversational interfaces to smartphones and other devices.Virtual assistants such as Siri, Alexa, and Google Now are already making waves since they cater to the modern demands of the customer through text or voice. Virtual assistants are moving from being purely proactive to being highly personalized. In the coming year, it is expected that nearly 20% of the citizens belonging to developed countries will use AI-powered assistants to help them with various everyday operational tasks and about 40% of customer-facing employees and government workers will consult an AI virtual support agent for decision/process support. The reason being – better collaboration between humans and machines due to improved interfaces and new AI capabilities.

We have to chat it out

The market for bots, especially chatbots, has been gaining a lot of traction. While a chatbot is a stand-alone conversational interface that uses an app, messaging platform, social network or chat solution for its conversations, a bot is a microservice or app that can operate on other bots, apps or services. In 2018, we will see many channel applications adopt self-learning chatbots as a built-in functionality since it goes hand-in-glove with the big boom of Big Data and Analytics while directly reducing direct labor and other operational costs. It will also be a year of blended AI since human interactions will never wane away but they may emerge as the epicenter that drives AI in the customer service industry.



Welcome to the post-app era

Conversational AI platforms will supersede and push the existing paradigm of ‘cloud first and mobile first’ to the background. These AI platforms will accelerate the growth of AI-related markets. Here is why:

• They move away from fixed commands for communication between people, bots, agents, applications and other services
• Offer a broad range of narrow AI services
• Persists across modalities, devices, contexts while being sensitive to context change
• Makes machines smarter and humans successful in novel situations

This new paradigm shift marks the beginning of a ‘post app’ era.

Building a new safe zone

As more and more devices get connected, there may arise the challenges of new security breaches. Cyber security experts will need all the help they can to meet these threats. AI systems are designed to detect even the smallest of changes in the environment, and they have the potential to act much faster to fix them. AI will be of tremendous help to identify and analyze such exploits and weaknesses to quickly mitigate more attacks. In 2018, AI-based cyber security technologies will become more mature.

Let’s get emotional

In 2018, AI will slowly start to further mould the way we interact with daily technologies. Gartner even boldly predicts that in the coming years, personal devices will know more about our emotional state than our own families! As more and more user data is collected and analyzed to create better contexts, it will be a turning point for users to spend more and more time with devices such as smartphones, wearables, and PC. Emotional AI detects emotions (happiness, surprise, anxiousness, sadness, anger, fear and a neutral state) through voice intonations or facial expressions. This will be added to the educational software, video games, and diagnostic software to provide a much more personalized experience.

“The age of automation is going to be the age of ‘do it yourself'”
Marshall McLuhan

A very deep impact

AI is not restricted to the realm of software alone. Thanks to deep learning, a new name for neural networks may ultimately lead to a hardware revolution. Highly parallel Graphic Processing Unit (GPUs) chips which provide the necessary computational power and hardware designed for Deep Neural Networks will be 100 to 1,000 times powerful than those that are available today. A better hardware architecture has the potential to make a big impact on the next generation of applications. We will see more software companies investing in custom hardware to speed up the processing for deep learning.

Automatic for the people

AI in retail and e-commerce is undoubtedly picking up momentum. As AI begins to become more accurate in its predictions of customer needs, automated purchases that are directly delivered to the customer will become a more compelling option. AI-powered product recommendation engines will target and personalize products that are displayed to the customers. Moreover, machine-learning algorithms will alter recommendations based on the stage or channel a customer is shopping in. With improved logistics, customers too will be convinced and more open to engage with this type of purchase.

While the year 2018 is poised for greater impact of AI not many organizations are still not equipped with the right skills. Technical skills such as deep learning are at a nascent stage. Technology business leaders must understand how to successfully leverage opportunities that AI presents, instead of remaining averse to it as a passing fad. After all, Artificial Intelligence is here to stay. The 2018 will indeed make a stronger case for it.

• This article was originally published in Express Computer

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/the-rise-of-data-privacy-in-the-world-of-customer-experience/ Thu, 26 Apr 2018 09:35:59 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=1578 In the world of customer experience, the recent Facebook data breach scandal has resulted in a lot of discussion about customer privacy. Companies, all over the world, are talking about how trust plays a pivotal role in the relationships they build with customers. The first step to offering a superior and relevant experience to customers […]

The post The Rise Of Data Privacy In The World Of Customer Experience appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> In the world of customer experience, the recent Facebook data breach scandal has resulted in a lot of discussion about customer privacy. Companies, all over the world, are talking about how trust plays a pivotal role in the relationships they build with customers.

The first step to offering a superior and relevant experience to customers is building trust in their minds that, in turn, sets their expectations. It leads to positive outcomes such as greater loyalty, higher revenue, and consistent referrals. Brands get what they give, as far as trust is concerned.

Even though Facebook was not ultra-quick to respond to the scandal, they are trying to regain the trust of their users. It is now critical for them to focus on continuously in creating opportunities to reinforce it. However, in this digital-first day and age, it is easier said than done. With new channels are emerging for customers to reach out and interact with brands, negative feedback is merely a click away. Unless they are proactive about building trust across their entire CX ecosystem, they may erode the level of trust their share with customers.

Humanizing the experience

On Sunday, Facebook started their apology tour by publishing an apology note – written by Mark Zuckerberg –in leading newspapers across the world. Written in a plain black text, with a tiny Facebook logo in the background, the founder addressed the situation in a personal way. “I’m sorry we didn’t do more at the time”, he wrote.

 

 

When breaches of trust cause a breakage in brand promise, brands should not try too hard to hand-hold customers through the situation.In fact, pushing official statements that evoke neither empathy nor offer reasonable clarity can backfire. Instead, they should empathize with how customers have perceived the situation, and accordingly communicate before starting to rebuild the trust that they had lost.

Next-gen and the art of listening

Today’s customers want to be proactively listened to, not reactively spoken down to. Whether over the phone, through chat or across social media – they want to be heard. An important part of this is customer feedback management. Eastbridge Consulting Group research states that 70% of complaining customers will do business with a brand if the issue is resolved in their favor.

Acting on customer complaints gives brands a chance to redeem themselves; to turn a negative incident into a positive and reaffirming interaction. Improvements can be monitored too, thereby making it a model for continuously scaling up the experience.

The Internet sat up and paid a lot of attention to Zuckerberg’s apology note. Along the way, it has collected tons of feedback – good, bad and the ugly. Now, it is up to them to ensure effective communication so that their customers, every one of them, feel that they can be trusted again.

A quick customer-first response helps in building a strong comeback. Depending on how customers react to it, the next step should be taken. If there is a lack of clarity in communication, it should be addressed in the follow-up. Customers, these days, expect nothing less.Working alongside with them to resolve issues can only make the bond stronger.

 
“We shouldn’t ask our customers to make a tradeoff between privacy and security. We need to offer them the best of both. Ultimately, protecting someone else’s data protects all of us”
Tim Cook
 

A year of reckoning for customer experience

The other big news in the world of data privacy is that Europe has taken a firm stance by instituting the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) framework. It will be challenging times, especially for the e-commerce industry. But, it also presents opportunities for companies all over the world to sit up and take notice of how customers may be perceiving a crucial part of the experience – trust.

According to a prediction by Forrester, 2018 will be a year of reckoning for many brands. In a recently-published report, they talk about how “firms born with or driving customer-led, digitally centered strategies are separating themselves from the pack” and why “digital platforms are increasingly dis-intermediating brands, separating them from customers”.

It is an inconvenient truth that controversies, as history seems to indicate, are often catalysts for initiating change. In the world of customer experience, they force companies to reinvent the way they approach their customers. From MySpace LinkedIn, Yahoo, Dropbox and Uber to retail and governmental agencies, data breaches have been unfortunate reminders to businesses of all sizes that they need to step up their game in delivering great experiences.

The biggest lesson to be learnt from the Facebook data scandal is that the rules of experience have not changed. Trust leads to loyalty, which results in a better experience customers.

• This article was originally published in Express Computer

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/when-the-journey-became-a-destination/ Wed, 25 Apr 2018 07:32:05 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=1475 For over two decades, we have been skyrocketing customer experiences, and boldly going places where few other CX specialists have gone before. Way before the rise of Big Data, the advent of AI, and the shrinking of digital landscapes all over the world, we were right there – pushing our own limits and crossing boundaries […]

The post When The Journey Became A Destination appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> For over two decades, we have been skyrocketing customer experiences, and boldly going places where few other CX specialists have gone before. Way before the rise of Big Data, the advent of AI, and the shrinking of digital landscapes all over the world, we were right there – pushing our own limits and crossing boundaries of what can be defined as a memorable experience.

We have not always been blogging it but ever since we started, we have gained a reader base who visit us on a regular basis. They rely on us to give them what they absolutely need to know about customer experience. Of course, we are always excited about reaching out to new subscribers.

That is why we have decided to refresh Servion’s blog, and revitalize the type of experience you can get from it.

If you have already been here, we appreciate your constant support, and we hope that you like our brand-new avatar. And if you are new around these parts, thank you for arriving here. We invite you to hang around. Things are about to get interesting.

Now, hit that subscribe button, and let us be your ultimate CX destination.


Welcome to an out-of-the-world experience | ServionWatch Video

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/what-4-fundamental-ps-customer-insights/ Thu, 19 Apr 2018 11:46:57 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=1374 Customer Experience (CX) can be seen as a paradox. It is something that all companies have to deliver yet it is also looked at as a powerful differentiator that makes one stand out from the rest. Considering the generational mindset these days, brand success lies in creating an experience that is proactive, personal and purposeful. […]

The post What You Need To Know About The 4 Fundamental Ps Of Customer Insights appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> Customer Experience (CX) can be seen as a paradox. It is something that all companies have to deliver yet it is also looked at as a powerful differentiator that makes one stand out from the rest. Considering the generational mindset these days, brand success lies in creating an experience that is proactive, personal and purposeful. As CX has become a core business strategy, how do you really engage your customers? Are customer insights the special sauce you need to sweeten (or spice up) their experiences?

Well, here’s another paradox for you. The answer is very simple, yet extremely complex. You need to understand their expectations and then, you should deliver on it. But as the saying goes, “knowledge is half the battle”. Here is what you can be sure of, though. Customer insights is not just a powerful catalyst that can get you to the hallowed grounds of superior experience, in these fast-paced digital climate – it is a survival kit as well.

Most organizations have access to mountains of data based on past purchases, trends, interactions, behavioral patterns, and user needs. However, they don’t always know how to harness true value from it. But, with insights from multiple sources, you can share, analyze and work together to offer a seamless journey for your customers.

 

 

Why are customer insights so important?

The goal for any organization is to turn customer data into service, sales and marketing insights.

They are the Eureka moments that you can use as sources of engagement to run targeted marketing campaigns, and social posts. This will be helpful in improving operational efficiency and building a strong user base.

With customer insights tools, you can:

• Focus on what’s working for different demographics
• Ensure faster problem-solving and decision-making
• Better understand customer wants and expectations
• Refine CX at specific touchpoints to drive growth
• Build better connections
• Build better experiences for your customers and prospects

Collecting and analyzing insights from various customer touchpoints gives companies a clear picture of how their brand is perceived. While it bridges the gap between prospective customers and attracting new ones, it unlocks the power to deliver the experience that they are often craving. Therefore, it is essential to deliver a consistent and seamless CX at the right place, the right time and with the right message at every step of the lifecycle.

 
“Less than a quarter of enterprises integrate data across channels to provide a single view of the customer”
Harvard Business Review’s Analytics Services
 

The four Ps of customer insights

During every interaction, a customer leaves a footprint. This may include website visits, social media interactions, calls to contact centers or email exchanges. This information is collected in a database which becomes an integral part of its experience ecosystem.

Here are the four ways to use insights and transform the way your brand is seen in the future:

Personalize experiences: Create an emotional bond

Automation has taken over how businesses run both on the B2C and B2B end, nonetheless, customers of today expect an element of human touch in all of their interactions. A report by the Journal of Consumer Research shares that more than 50% of an experience is based on an emotion as they shape the attitude that drives decisions.

Emotions play a major role in a brand-customer relationship. With a holistic view, you can understand how they feel, track their preferences and deliver a highly-personalized experience. According to Forbes, more than 85% of mobile marketers are successful because of personalization. This leads to higher engagement, revenue, and conversions.

So, if you wish to create that personalized service, move away from that one-size-fits all approach and connect with them on an emotional level to win over their loyalty.

 

 

Proactive monitoring: Identify areas for improvement

The metrics of measurement is crucial for interactions to evolve into more meaningful conversations. For example, extended email conversations or longer average handle times may indicate issues that need resolution. The questions that arise might include, are agents well-trained to handle issue resolution? Are there delays when accessing CRM or toggling between different systems? Can supervisors be contacted in case extra help is necessary?

To continually improve the existing experience, it is critical for companies to listen to both the customer and employees to detect the pain points within the journey and develop solutions to overcome them. It could be small corrective measures like updating self-service FAQ’s on a website or hosting videos that resolve simple but repetitive problems. This could be the difference between losing and retaining a loyalist.

 
“By 2018, more than 50% of organizations will redirect their investments to customer experience innovations”
Gartner
 

Preempt actions: Develop new opportunities

Using the big data and analytics engine, you get a 360-degree view of the customer’s journey. With this single view, you can address and analyze the data from all channel applications and deliver Next Best Actions. For example, introducing a point-based loyalty system to target a new audience.

In order to increase the chances of introducing the product line to customers, a cross-sell or upsell strategy can also be fit into the rule engine. Determined based on insights, the products can be arranged according to an optimal pattern of product associations. This will lead to an increase in the number of purchases per visit. For example, while making inquiries for hotel bookings, a pop-up can prompt a list of places to visit in that city.

 

How to deliver omni-channel customer experience | ServionWatch Video
 

Predict: Fix issues before they happen

In the digital world where everything is recorded in real-time and mishaps happen in split seconds, it is important to stay cautious about delivering an unpleasant experience. Through customer insights tools, you can spot and fix those problems.

For example, if agents are receiving frequent calls on a product bug, the machine learning engine can quickly identify the problem across the calls log and raise an alert to investigate the problem and release an update to rectify the bug. Alerts can also be raised for machinery that are showing signs of wearing out or that require the attention of technicians for a fix before it begins to create quality control issues.

 
“Data is a precious thing and will last longer than the systems themselves”
Tim Berners-Lee (Inventor of the World Wide Web)
 

Turn customer insights into perfect experiences

The value of experience is rising. Corporate giants are revolutionizing how they handle customers experience by jumping onto new technologies as and when they emerge. Likewise, users are comfortable interacting with brands at their own pace and within favorable environments. With real-time interactions carried out via self-service engines, and artificial intelligence platforms like chatbots and virtual assistants, the demand for the perfect experience has elevated.

As customers are spoiled for choice, it is necessary that companies are always on their A-game because a poor experience is enough to drive away even their loyalists. And customer insights simplifies this process. It helps them think like a customer and find the right fit by adapting strategies to changing expectations, even millennials. Thus, you can deliver breakthrough CX today, to stay relevant tomorrow.

• Check out how Servion provided seamless omni-channel CX for a bank

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• Learn about turning insights into actionable intelligence

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• Delivering the right customer experience for every customer

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/skyrocket-performance-cloud-contact-center/ Tue, 03 Apr 2018 09:48:28 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=660 Contact centers are the heart of a business’ customer service. Regardless of the size, they are the driving force of customer interactions. Over the years, the term ‘going cloud’ has become a significant buzzword in the market. Thus, many legacy and nascent contact centers have opened the doors to cloud contact center. But, to maintain […]

The post How To Skyrocket The Performance Of Your Contact Center On The Cloud appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> Contact centers are the heart of a business’ customer service. Regardless of the size, they are the driving force of customer interactions. Over the years, the term ‘going cloud’ has become a significant buzzword in the market. Thus, many legacy and nascent contact centers have opened the doors to cloud contact center.

But, to maintain a consistently performing contact center is imperative for the enterprise. And as the critical middleman between the brand and the customer, it is essential they do not encounter downtimes. This could slow-down business and affect customer loyalty in the long run. Therefore, the need to modernize it and deliver state-of-the-art experiences to customers.

 
“The cloud contact center is projected to grow to 20.93 billion by 2022”
MarketsandMarkets
 

So, what is a cloud contact center?

It is a comprehensive suite of tools and applications hosted on cloud servers, making interactions accessible from anywhere. They have become very common because of their immediate availability as a service. It can also adapt to business needs, be scaled up or down and easily switch between messaging strategies at any moment.

Cloud vs. On-premise contact centers

While both contact centers ensure the job gets done, enterprises need to keep up with trends in the market and optimize their infrastructure and IT ecosystems. They also need to track the customers’ growing demands and provide seamless customer experience. But then again, most enterprises don’t know what is different between cloud and on-premise contact centers.

Here are a few areas where on-premise contact centers are lagging:

• Installation/Set-up/Faster GTM
• Operational and ownership costs
• Flexibility
• Scalability
• Easy management
• Security
• Reliability
• Agent Efficiency
 

ServCloud – Reliable, robust and resilient | ServionWatch Video
 

Reasons to migrate to the cloud

There may be several reasons why a traditional contact center might be slowing down your service. But, before you take the leap, ask yourself – why it is necessary that you move operations to the cloud? What problems can you solve if you adopt the solution?

Here are a few reasons to help you decide whether you need a cloud-based contact center:

• To revamp IT and operational strategies and focus on growth strategies
• To have access to continuous innovation and updates
• To efficiently manage costs and reallocate them wherever required
• To find newer and future-proof service ecosystems

Ways to improve contact center performance on the cloud

The task of making a contact center successful doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a considerable amount of effort to align people, processes, and system to organizational goals. But with cloud solutions, the path to success is smoother.

 

 

Here are five ways you can maintain a consistently performing cloud contact center:

Manage multiple contact centers

Collaboration, now, has become quick and easy, and cloud contact centers are not far behind. Eliminate the need for infrastructure at several locations. Instead, overlay existing on-premise systems and drive behavior from the cloud. With a simple-to-manage system, it can improve business performance in an effective manner.

Cloud-based contact centers solutions work on omni-channel technology to create centralized control and management across locations and channels. This allows rules and scripts to be modified whenever necessary.

Holistic system integration

Contact centers depend on many software solutions to provide the right experience for agents and customers. But if any one of those tools encounters problems, they are likely to cause a delay in service.

With cloud contact centers, all business tools are customizable according to the convenience of the end-user. They are available at the click of a button and can enrich agent experience and reduce data redundancy. By accessing multiple systems from a single location, it increases the need for data-driven decisions.

 

 

User-interactive systems

Easy-to-use and interactive cloud solutions have numerous benefits for users. It eradicates the need for agent coaching or other training programs, allowing them to spend more time on customer resolution.

Cloud contact centers work differently from traditional ones. And the way they receive updates on cloud applications also vary. These cloud platforms are available for immediate usage and subsequently each time users log into the software they receive up-to-date versions.

Analytics mixed routing strategies

A cloud-based routing system doesn’t just collect data from one source. It gathers data from CRM, IVR, ACD, customer databases and public demographic sources. It then analyzes data to dynamically route customer interaction on the basis of a set of rules.

• Performance routing – Matches customers with agents who have the best business outcomes
• Demographic and personality routing – Connects customers based on the familiarity or like-mindedness
• Customer status routing – Chooses agents who are best at retention and sales
• Value-based routing – Routes prioritized customers to higher-skilled agents
• Media-prioritization – Matches interactions based on the channel used
 
“Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves”
Steve Jobs
 

Track agent performances

Contact center supervisors can breathe a sigh of relief because of cloud contact centers. They can spend less time worrying about back end operations. Instead, they can focus on efficient agent performance by improving the quality of service. Using real-time dashboards, reports, and powerful data insights, managers/supervisors can monitor call analytics and analyze key performance metrics to optimize services.

How a better performing cloud contact center boots customer experience?

With cloud-based contact centers, agents have better access to customer information. They have an overall view of the customer. By understanding their behavioral patterns, historical and transactional data, agents can serve customers better.

As agents work on multiple platforms on a single workstation, they can interact on any communication channel that is convenient for the customer. This allows them to multitask and offer 360-degree customer support anywhere and anytime.

This efficient and seamless experience to resolve customer queries will only enable superior customer experiences.

 
“By 2020, a corporate “no-cloud” policy will be as rare as a “no-internet” policy is today “
Gartner
 

How does it boost revenue?

Most cloud-based contact centers work on a subscription-based model. This helps cut down maintenance or licensing costs, allowing users to pay only for the features and storage necessary. As a far more cost-effective method than on-premise contact centers, they can rapidly be scaled up or down when required, without the need for additional hardware expenses, especially during seasonal peaks.

Does it boost agent productivity?

Cloud contact centers allow agents to log in from any convenient place. They can schedule their work according to their flexibility. With easy access to information on servers and an integrated and intuitive dashboard, it empowers them to spend lesser time looking up customer information. This permits them to spend more time handling multiple customer interactions across diverse channels, reducing the time spent per customer, and in turn reaching precision-level resolutions. The power of the cloud results in happier, more productive and efficient workforce.

Features such as Visual IVR, ChatBot, Customer Journey Analytics (CJA), Prioritized Callbacks can also help save agent time, along with efficient routing technology that matches the right agent with the right customer.

 

How Cloud Computing can improve Contact Center Agent PerformanceWatch Video
 

Here’s how you can choose the right cloud contact center partner

While the decision to move contact center operations to the cloud is the first step, it is critical to choose the right vendor, who will help you through the journey. Even though infrastructure like data, servers, and licenses are key, they are the easiest to tick off on the checklist. You must look for a partner with diverse applications and integration capabilities, who are platform agnostic and able to handle multiple technologies. They should understand your KPI needs and how your enterprise works before implementing solutions or making recommendations.

Businesses will always continue to value cloud-based contact center solutions as they offer updates and features. This definite path will not just improve customer interaction but also keep steadily increasing customer satisfaction.

Thereby contact centers are bound to use cloud solutions to achieve superior customer experience.

• Looking to skyrocket your CX? Go cloud with ServCloud

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• Westcon-Comstor adds Servion’s CCaaS solution to its cloud portfolio

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/attended-process-automation-best-cx-technology/ Mon, 26 Mar 2018 12:21:50 +0000 http://localhost/servion-dev/blog/?p=33 Delivering an experience that associates a brand with superior customer experience is what organizations always aim to achieve. Organizations aim to proactively implement transformations such as automation to boost customer retention and increase brand loyalty. The emotional quotient and critical human interventions that are needed to keep delivering superior customer experience in the front-office is […]

The post Attended Process Automation: The Best Technology Experience For Your Customer appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> Delivering an experience that associates a brand with superior customer experience is what organizations always aim to achieve. Organizations aim to proactively implement transformations such as automation to boost customer retention and increase brand loyalty. The emotional quotient and critical human interventions that are needed to keep delivering superior customer experience in the front-office is a key consideration for automation. This is where attended process automation comes into play. Mixed with human interaction, it is a great tool for building long-lasting relationships and freeing employees from repetitive and tedious tasks.

For effective delivery of an end-to-end business solution leveraging next-gen technologies, attended process automation should be combined with artificial intelligence software and machine learning capabilities. It can handle high-volume repetitive tasks in a streamlined and effective manner, that otherwise would take humans a long time to complete. Such tasks include: queries, calculations, maintenance of records and transactions.

 
“The Robotic Process Automation market will grow by 41% year on year by 2020”
Gartner
 

What is attended process automation?

A type of Robotic Process Automation (RPA), it is carried out at the workstation level. Also, termed as desktop automation, assisted automation or software assistants, this form of automation involves a software robot that carries out definite actions while complying with business logic. Humans control the entire process and govern when the transactions should progress.

During the process, the bot reads the contents of the applications, locates fields that contain the assigned data and performs the tasks as per the rules assigned at the start. It can also verify data and other programmed activities to be translated into specific actions.

While performing these operations, the robot can return control to the person at the workstation if necessary, i.e. if the last action before closure requires decision-making from a human. For example, in the banking and financial services industry, during inbound calls, tasks are initiated by an agent, then transferred to a bot to furnish the necessary details before it is handed back to the customer care executive.

 
Zoom Image
 

The difference between attended and unattended process automation

Unlike unattended process automation where automation takes place on servers without the need for human intervention, attended process automation software bots are deployed on workstation applications.

This standalone robot uses applications to retrieve information, applies configured rule engines to the information, and executes the process through user interfaces or application program interfaces.

For example, in a sales context, a robot analyzes emails, retrieves information and has them keyed into the database:

 
Zoom Image
 

Attended process automation has a strong role to play in front end and can invoke unattended automation for the back end activities of a contact center. It assigns smart desktop robots to mimic human activities and runs as a background application to offer the best insights at the exact moments when they are needed.

How does it help agents?

With this method of automation, software assistants can help agents get work done faster and with fewer errors. While they focus on processes that require strong decision-making skills, the repetitive chunks of work can be automated.

It provides guidance and automation wizards built within desktop applications to complete the work. During specific steps, the bot takes over to complete certain portions of work before handing over control to the human. It allows agents to attend to interesting and valuable work while empowering them to make decisions in real-time. They can also prompt agents during transactions if processes have been changed without the need for external training.

 

 

What it does for supervisors?

Using this tool, supervisors can oversee the combined actions of the human and robotic workforce. Based on this data, they can leverage the strengths of each to get more work done in an effective way.

As this improves the overall productivity and precision of work, supervisors can make more time for troubleshooting services, coaching, and decision-making capabilities.

What do customers gain?

As work becomes quicker and error-free, customer experience continues to improve. This allows organizations to ponder over new ways to meet the growing expectations of customers while using the maximum potential of both humans and process automation tools.

 

AI & The Future of Work | Volker Hirsch | TEDxManchesterWatch Video
 

Benefits of process automation

The average front-office employee spends 80% of their day on repetitive processes that include calculations or processing orders to support customers. Along with being time-consuming, it knocks down the morale and motivation to continue the monotony daily. Also reduces productivity which can be better spent on up-selling and cross-selling human interactions.

But, with process automation, all of it changes, as it automates manual desktop tasks that are routine, rule-based or event-driven and optimizes all business processes.

High customer satisfaction

It meets the service-level agreement requirement by 100% as customer service executives can focus on customers and service instead of filling in forms and other time-consuming activities.

 
“Intelligent automation will manage 85 percent of businesses’ customer relationships by 2020”
Gartner
 

Improved productivity and accuracy

Bots can complete tasks five times faster than people while working tirelessly 24X7. This allows teams to take in more work and venture into problem-solving processes while improving productivity. With assured 100% accuracy and policy compliance, clerical errors are eliminated.

Increased ROI

Operating costs are significantly reduced by using robotic workforce. According to the National Association of Software and Services Companies, RPA can reduce operation costs by up to 65 percent. Therefore, it eradicates the need for unnecessary expenses by leveraging IT assets with in-house workflows.

Improved resource utilization

While systems run the process automation tool, employees can be used in optimal ways that can add value to the business. Operations can also be rapidly scaled based on the demand to ensure consistency in service.

 

Virtual Assistant – powered by Artificial IntelligenceWatch Video
 

Process automation and artificial intelligence

Robots, in general, tend to learn as they run processes. They grasp patterns and behaviors on the basis of user activity. But with process automation, whether attended or unattended, bots can only perform actions that they are trained to do; due to the lack of self-learning abilities. But this depends on the level of logic the developer included (for handling situations based on past scenarios) while setting up the bot.

When process automation solutions are combined with cognitive technologies (based on artificial intelligence and machine learning), it increases the competency of the bot. This can help deliver smarter automation while reaching maximum potential. This means that bots will be able to learn and take decisions, and adapt to learn outside the initial environment. Due to this, the learning process can take place at accelerated rates that can increase both productivity and creativity for organizations.

Furthermore, the AI capabilities can be extended using natural language processing, reasoning, and prediction to turn data into useful information.

 
“Automation is good, so long as you know exactly where to put the machine”
Eliyahu Goldratt
 

Conclusion

Be it attended or unattended, all process automation involves human interaction, but the bigger challenge that many organizations face, is to decide what to automate. As customers consume newer channels of engagement, the question of whether the technology should be a long-term investment comes about. With attended process automation, it can uncover opportunities to optimize the processes in real-time.

As attended RPA assists a human at the workstation and saves valuable employees time, who wouldn’t want a robot helper all the time?

Naresh will be delivering a break-out session at NICE Interactions 2018 at Orlando this May. If you happen to be there, book a meeting with him here to understand how AI-led automation can deliver the best technology experience for you and your customers.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/emotional-intelligence-get-in-touch-your-natural-emotions/ Wed, 14 Mar 2018 08:20:04 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=151 This is part one of a five-part series on the importance of Behavioral Experience, and the impact it can have on our professional lives. It may not be the best-kept secret that Emotional Intelligence (EI) sits on top of Intelligence Quotient (IQ). EI holds the trump card over the IQ, especially in the corporate world. […]

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]]> This is part one of a five-part series on the importance of Behavioral Experience, and the impact it can have on our professional lives.

It may not be the best-kept secret that Emotional Intelligence (EI) sits on top of Intelligence Quotient (IQ). EI holds the trump card over the IQ, especially in the corporate world. It is because EI can help in leading a team more proficiently than merely assessing their cerebral intelligence. It provides a framework for identifying emotional team dynamics while managing those dynamics to build a cohesive juggernaut.

A high IQ person can even become a war criminal or a serial killer! However, a high EQ (Emotional Quotient) person is very likely not to. For them, harnessing empathy – along with identifying and regulating one’s emotion and that of others – holds the key to unlocking their emotional intelligence.

 
“Emotional intelligence is the ability to sense, understand, and effectively apply the power and acumen of emotions as a source of human energy, information, connection, and influence”
Robert K. Cooper
 

Good news is emotional intelligence can be trained & acquired

Emotional Intelligence as a competency is required for all leaders to engage with their teams, and help them to learn how to be efficient, driven and constructive.

Identifying our emotions during any event or situation is the first step of understanding our emotions. It is like the saying “A problem well defined is half solved.” Identifying one’s emotions and expressing the same without reacting is how one can effectively manage emotional outbursts and inner turmoil.

 

The Power of Emotional Intelligence | Travis Bradberry | TEDxUCIrvineWatch Video
 

Four basic human emotions – Joy, sorrow, anger & fear

What has made us survive from the real jungles as we evolved is the emotion ‘Fear’. We have moved out of real jungles to the concrete jungles. Still, our fear reigns supreme during certain moments whether critical or banal, in our lives. Now, if we have to deal with the dangerous wild animals on a daily basis, then it is vital for us to be afraid. Otherwise, we will not survive. Barely a night will pass before we have already become the most preferred brunch of the Savannah.

The basic ‘fight or flight’ mechanism – caused by any threat – is the only survival mechanism for human beings. But why do we fear in the safe environments that we call our homes or our workplaces? We do not have the creepy crawlies of the night lurking in our vicinities. Even the largest land insect can be thwarted by the use of a tennis bat. Yet, we grow anxious when we are presenting or speaking in front of our clients or bosses. We feel intimidated while partaking in debates and discourses with our peers during meetings, seminars or social outings.

Is it the right emotion for us to emote? Or are we just confused?

 

 

Less is not always more – literally & virtually

In today’s world of advanced technologies, virtual communication has taken over the physical face-to-face meetings. Skype and WhatsApp are ruling the interaction ecosystem. People seem to prefer text messaging than sitting down to talk things out. Career has taken precedence over one’s health and life. Gaining popularity has become more important than acquiring knowledge.

These changes, both intricate and blatant, may be some of the reasons why we do not naturally emote, and instead, we camouflage our instincts with racquet emotions. An emotion which is not true. For instance, if you lose your wallet – it must be sadness that you should emote, which is a natural emotion. But, many times, it may be anger that prevails, which plays the role of a racquet emotion.

 
“There are no good and bad emotions. They all bring vital messages and are key to our emotional intelligence”
Jessica Moore
 

Maximizing potential through self-awareness & social awareness

What you or others think, feel and react, as well as a deeper understanding of these faculties will help us behave appropriately in any situation.

Empathy as a communication skill should be developed; not just understanding the emotions of others but also to rightly identify and communicate emotions. Businesses are using empathy to create and innovate. The best way to innovate is for us to empathize with our associates, customers and stakeholders. After all, ideas that work come from pain points or frustrations that people have in products and services.

And unless you are about to go on wild safari, you must realize that it is not a jungle out there. Developing Emotional Intelligence is one of the milestones on your journey to realization, and your path to a successful career, and a productive and healthy lifestyle.

• Watch the debate on EI vs IQ

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/need-virtual-customer-assistant/ Mon, 12 Mar 2018 12:53:22 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=134 It is the age of the rise of the machines. Bots, Virtual Customer Assistants, and the likes are beginning to cover every sphere of our life. We will begin to see more and more enterprises desiring to use virtual customer assistants as they seek to increase customer satisfaction and reduce operating costs. According to Gartner […]

The post Do You Need A Virtual Customer Assistant? appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> It is the age of the rise of the machines. Bots, Virtual Customer Assistants, and the likes are beginning to cover every sphere of our life. We will begin to see more and more enterprises desiring to use virtual customer assistants as they seek to increase customer satisfaction and reduce operating costs. According to Gartner by 2020, 25% of customer service and support operations will integrate virtual customer assistant technology across engagement channels, up from less than 2% in 2017.

Virtual Customer Assistants (VCA) act on behalf of the enterprise to stimulate a conversation that delivers information and also potentially takes action on behalf of the customer to perform transactions. While buying a virtual assistant may be easy, enterprises must consider many factors before buying as not doing so will put the business at risk. Virtual customer assistants do not comprise of a single technology, instead, they are developed on the back of many foundational technologies, market factors, capabilities etc. A VCA consists of these four elements –

• A natural language processing engine
• A UI that receives the request and delivers the response via speech or text
• A search and knowledge engine that can traverse data repositories of knowledge and content
• A context engine that analyzes the intent of an individual and delivers personalized answers and actions
 

Virtual Assistant – powered by Artificial Intelligence |ServionWatch Video
 

Even before you venture, first determine why you need a virtual customer assistant

It is important to first define your business objectives, and what you would like to achieve. Jot down the business problem you are trying to solve. While there are many kinds of VA, this will help you to find the right kind of VA to meet your objectives. Remember, it is always best to go with the option that best answers your needs and business growth. Consider the project size, the importance of VA, cost involved and calculated ROI.

Once you have pinpointed the goals, the problems to be solved and the business objectives, the next step is to go for a VA that delivers specific business results that you are targeting. While you go for such platforms, you must ensure to avoid spending a lot of time in customization and longer implementation times that lead to higher costs.

The next factor you should consider is how your project is to be implemented. Always determine the complexity of the task first and then look at the level of engagement. Decide if it is going to just be information dissemination or an interactive conversation. After deciding these things, start small. Use multiple steps to implement so that if there are any bottlenecks you can easily identify and then move on to the next step.

 

 

Another deciding point would be to evaluate how smart your application should be. While it is good to have a VCA that answers more than 75% of all the customer queries it is always better to start small, have some portions answered by the VCA and then perhaps passed on to a human being. As said earlier, let it be a step-by-step process.

Should you buy or build your own virtual customer assistant? While it may be easier to buy a VCA off the shelf, it may not always meet your requirements. And sometimes building a VCA from scratch may take much time and effort. It is advisable to buy a VCA that meets most of your requirements and then customize it to suit your needs. This way you can ensure that all your needs are met with the minimum possible time to construct a VCA.

 
“The future of personalized customer experience is inevitably tied to ‘Intelligent Assistance”
Dan Miller Founder, Opus Research
 

The most difficult factor might be in finding the right vendor who can build/implement a virtual customer assistant according to your needs. It is always better to ask details like a product roadmap to assess the vendor’s maturity level. It would also be good to get a reference about the vendor from known circles.

The last and the most important task is to first test the VCA before putting it into live production. Extensive testing is necessary to get the technology to perform within acceptable boundaries. Thus you can ensure there are no hiccups during implementation and the solution perfectly meets customer expectations.

All the above factors will help you to critically analyze and come to a conclusion about how your business needs to go in for a virtual customer assistant to drive great experiences!

• The Servion virtual assistant solution

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• 6 ways artificial intelligence can skyrocket customer experience

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/3-mantras-feel-great-about-being-woman/ Thu, 08 Mar 2018 12:43:22 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=191 This is a monthly initiative from us to share the ideas, opinions and wisdom from Servion’s Wonder Women. Considering that today is International Women’s Day the buzzwords are running amok! Roses are being handed out. The WhatsApp forwards are doubling. And people all over the world are talking about “women’s equality”, “women’s rights”, “women in […]

The post 3 Mantras To Feel Great About Being A Woman appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> This is a monthly initiative from us to share the ideas, opinions and wisdom from Servion’s Wonder Women.

Considering that today is International Women’s Day the buzzwords are running amok! Roses are being handed out. The WhatsApp forwards are doubling. And people all over the world are talking about “women’s equality”, “women’s rights”, “women in leadership”, etc.

Now, as far as I am concerned, these are catchphrases that often mean very little. I don’t believe in them. Why? Would you believe me if I told you that I found a lot of them to be hypocritical and sexist? Especially in this day and age of fighting for LGBTQ rights, the promotional campaigns that hijack the public discourse every March 8th come across as being regressive.

 

 

Now, I am 47 years old, and I have been a working professional for a few decades. At this point in time – do you know what I enjoy the most? The inequality of being a woman. That is when I can prove to myself that I have a special place in the world. A special purpose. Be it, at home or work or in society. With the wisdom reflected by the grey hair that I often sport, I have coined three mantras for what I perceive as empowerment. I share them with the women in my own life, especially my daughters. While I strongly contest the notion of talking about importance of women being true to themselves only on particular days, I would like to share my mantras with each one of you.

Mantra #1

Discover your value. But, do not believe those who tell you that it must be something that you are born with. That is a bunch of baloney. With a rotten cherry on top. Simply because in each of us, there is surely one thing that our subconscious mind has honed to habit – perfection. Pick that. Use it.

You are better off with the notion that “Sujatha makes the best coffee around here” than “Sujatha is ok on Java coding”.

 
“Women are always saying,’We can do anything that men can do’ but men should be saying,’We can do anything that women can do”
Gloria Steinem
 

Mantra #2

Find your circle – a circle in which your “value” is given its due importance. It is, after all, in your hands to make people aware of the value that is inherent to you. So, invest time in promoting your value. And if the circle does not value your value, there is only one way out. It is simple. Just find another circle. Move on. Many of us tend to waste time in trying to fit ourselves into society-approved boxes

Ensure that the circle fits you. Not the vice-versa. It’s a paradigm shift.

Mantra #3

Make your value indispensable. You and your value should become so intertwined that your circle cannot separate the two. Create an aura of “Oh, they can’t do it without me“. It has nothing to do with grooming your team, sharing knowledge or any of that sort. When the curtain falls, there should be ONE reason why it should be you, and not anyone else.

Now the question may arise – why are these mantra specific only for women?

It is simple.

It is because we are women!

Now, as for the spirit of the celebration – I would like to wish you a very Happy Women’s Day. If I see you tomorrow or any other point in time in our known universe, I would wish you again and again and again.

 

Happy International Women’s Day 2018 | Servion Global SolutionsWatch Video
 

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/omni-channel-strategy-telecom-industry/ Tue, 06 Mar 2018 09:52:04 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=218 A little over a month ago, I was having network coverage trouble on my phone. While this could have been restricted only to a select area, I shrugged off the idea of reaching out to the service provider. Soon it progressed to data connectivity issues. To solve this, I visited the store and the customer […]

The post How To Make A Good Omnichannel Strategy Great For The Telecom Industry appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> A little over a month ago, I was having network coverage trouble on my phone. While this could have been restricted only to a select area, I shrugged off the idea of reaching out to the service provider. Soon it progressed to data connectivity issues. To solve this, I visited the store and the customer care representative gave me a reason that my SIM card was worn out. Therefore, getting a new one seemed to be the only logical solution at that point in time.

But the problem just didn’t seem to go away, even though I was one of their most valued customers. While I thought to move to a new telecom provider using the mobile number portability option was an easy and quick fix, the journey was long, nerve-wracking, and something I would never want to experience again.

That’s when I realized that the multi-channel approach is still predominant in most enterprises. While omni-channel is the present and the future,implementing it and putting it to use is where brands need to be. Even though the marketplace has been abuzz with omni-channel engagement, not everyone has been able to bridge the gap and offer seamless experience throughout the journey.

 
“All omni-channel experiences will use multiple channels, but not all multi-channel experiences are omni-channel”
Hubspot
 

What is an omni-channel strategy? Why has it become important?

The word ‘omni’ comes from the original word Omnis which means universal. It is essentially about the continuity of your journey experience from start to finish, despite any channel, anywhere or anytime. But the actual customer experience received is galaxies away.

In fact, Aberdeen Group Inc. predicts that enterprises with strong omni-channel customer engagement strategies retain an average of 89% of their customers, in comparison with 33% of businesses that have weak omni-channel strategies.

With a proactive approach, enterprises have access to better insights and buying patterns that makes a drastic difference to how the journey pans out. This ultimately reflects in hunting new customers and increasing retention by keeping in line with the brand promise that they offer, that often goes unnoticed or is forgotten.

 

 

Why do telecom providers need it in particular?

The telecommunication industry over the years has seen a spectrum of changes. They bridge the communication gap and is the backbone of digitalization. Since then telecom operators have undertaken the effort of digitizing the internal processes as well as customer interactions.However, they are faced with complex challenges that include physical products mixed with the range of services that they offer.

They face the following difficulties during operation:

• Lack of coordination
• Poor overall digital vision
• Siloed interactions

According to Accenture:

• The customer’s journey is dynamic
• The journey is accessible
• And the journey is continuous as the exposed touch points are always on

So, here are five motives why you need an omni-channel strategy for your contact center especially in the telecommunications industry:

 

How to deliver omni-channel customer experience | ServionWatch Video
 

Say goodbye to siloed interactions:

Silos of customer engagement have become a factor of customer discontent and can cause the customer journey, more so the experience, to become fatal.

Subsequently, implementing an omni-channel strategy impacts how an enterprise functions from top-down. This means transparency no longer takes a backseat across departments and the ‘power to contact’ shifts back to the customers.

As departments work hand-in-hand, it is a key way to overcome challenges and develop a synergy between teams, with the common aim of keeping customers happy.

A unified view of the customer:

In an era where communication between businesses and customer has become a two-way street, it is common to receive multiple service requests from a customer. But not all the requests end up successful and one bad move can make you lose a privileged customer.

Therefore, the first step in the journey of customer delight – have a 360-degree view of the customer. Multiple customer profiles lead to disconnected experiences, thus there is a need to connect customer profile information across the different systems.

This can help easily dissect customer sentiments and reduce the propensity of churn by identifying customer demographic, usage and purchase patterns and transactions.

 

How to become awesome at Contact Center Analytics? | Servion Global SolutionsWatch Video
 

Optimized and sustained channels using big data and analytics:

For an efficient omni-channel strategy, it is important that channels complement one another. As telecom giants compete to outdo the other, it is necessary that both online and offline channels are aligned and data is consistently monitored.

Using the analytics engine, it is possible to deliver a personalized experience to customers by analyzing data from purchasing patterns and search history. This also helps discover opportunities in the customer journey that could help win over the customer during moments of dissatisfaction.

Track customers across the journey:

Easily track each customer journeys individually. Understand what the customer is saying about the enterprise and gather their sentiments across each phase along with their preferences.

Enterprises that use an omni-channel platform can filter customer journey data based on interaction type. You can also find triggers of displeasure and use this data to translate customer needs into actionable insights to create a proactive and personalized experience across different channels. This can then be implemented for individual or a group of customers who have similar behavioral patterns.

 

 

Evolving with change:

As customer needs and preferences change over time, this process will continue to be an area of expansion and development. With data and experience driving the relationship between the customer and the enterprise, it won’t be long before customers find newer channels of interactions.

Enterprises need to be on the lookout for opportunities to monetize data and generate revenue. This can also mean studying data over a period of time to improve the quality of service and keeping technology up to par with the market.

But why haven’t businesses invested in omni-channel technology yet?

Most of them continue to work on legacy systems with interfaces that cater to channel-specific experience. The technologies that they use are not readily available to install a plug-and-play omni-channel platform.

The lack of flexibility is what is keeps them lagging in the game amongst the competition. And they also struggle to keep up with their customers’ demands and expectations.

Omni-channel technology is not a trend that will disappear in the near future because of its demands by customers. Our unconscious interactions with brands every day becomes data and insights for every enterprise. And it will continue to be a key attribute that they use to devise omni-channel strategy and deliver not just impressive but superior customer experience.

Have you invested in an omni-channel strategy yet?

• Servion helped a telecom player to reduce waiting times for customers

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• How Servion provided seamless omni-channel CX for a bank?

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• Hub of all things: stay connected in an omni-channel world

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/what-is-cloud-analytics-need-to-know/ Thu, 01 Mar 2018 09:33:22 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=255 Cloud Analytics is primarily a type of cloud service where data analysis and related services are performed on a public or private cloud. Cloud adoption is increasingly expanding as more companies find success with its implementation. According to Gartner, the Business Intelligence (BI) and Analytics market is expected to continue to grow 7.9% through 2020. […]

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]]> Cloud Analytics is primarily a type of cloud service where data analysis and related services are performed on a public or private cloud. Cloud adoption is increasingly expanding as more companies find success with its implementation. According to Gartner, the Business Intelligence (BI) and Analytics market is expected to continue to grow 7.9% through 2020. One of the primary drivers of new growth in this rapidly evolving market is interest in cloud deployments as they have the potential to reduce the cost of ownership and speed the time to deployment. There is also the ease of data sharing, collaboration, and data security.

One of the major driving force for large organizations to decide on the cloud is Big Data Analytics. As Big Data Analytics involves massive amounts of data and infrastructure large enough to handle the amount of data required to provide a compelling insight, organizations now have the option of shifting this resource intensive burden to the cloud.

 
“I don’t need a hard disk in my computer if I can get to the server faster… carrying around these non-connected computers is byzantine by comparison.”
Steve Jobs (late Chairman of Apple)
 

Services offered by Cloud Analytics

• Software as a Service (SaaS) uses the web to deliver applications that are managed by a third party vendor and whose interface is accessed on the client side. Eg. Google Apps, Salesforce, Cisco WebEx
• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provides the hardware needed to handle large sets of data remotely. Eg. Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Compute Engine
• Platform as a Service (PaaS) is a cloud-based computing environment designed to support the rapid deployment, running, and management of applications
• SAP Cloud for Analytics (C for A) is a Software as a Service (SaaS) business intelligence (BI) platform by SAP for the cloud with the intent of providing all analytical capabilities to all users in one product
• Data Analytics as a Service (DAaaS) or Analytics as a Service (AaaS) is an extensible analytical platform provided using a cloud-based delivery model, where various analytical tools are available to efficiently process and analyse huge amounts of heterogeneous data
• Big Data as a Service (BDaaS) is a relatively new terminology that describes a fast growing market. BDaaS is used to describe a wide variety of outsourcing of various Big Data functions to the cloud. This includes data, the supply of analytical tools which integrates the data to carry out the analysis and reports. Some providers also include consulting and advisory services as part of BDaaS (eg: IBM’s Analytics for Twitter)
 

ServCloud: Cutting-edge CCaaS and UCaaS for superior CX | ServionWatch Video
 

Benefits of Cloud Analytics

• Provides faster access to data: Scattered among the millions of bits of data that surround customer transactions and business processes are nuggets of invaluable information readily available to be acted upon. A cloud-based analytics solution helps to glean, clean and draw insights as data is available real-time
• Offers increased flexibility: Cloud-based applications offer increased freedom and flexibility as they are built with self-learning models. They can expand or adjust the data storage if the business needs extra bandwidth
• Improves decision-making: Whenever there is a need for a new data-driven application, it can be created quickly in the cloud as everything needed is readily available in the cloud. There is no need to purchase and setup new hardware, operating systems, databases, applications servers or analytics
• Enables collaboration: The ability of users to access data from a single source enables them to cut across lines of businesses and core operations. Team members can view and share information easily and in real-time
• Reduced Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): Unlike on-premise solution, there are no upgrade costs or issues and enabling new tools or applications require minimal maintenance. Most of the cloud analytics providers use the pay-as-you-go model which allows you to pay only for the features you are using and the storage space that you use
• Faster Disaster Recovery: When it is difficult to predict or prevent disaster, one good thing about cloud analytics is that it allows for speedy recovery
• High Security: Cloud analytics is more secure and reliable than on premise solution. This is because even a small data breach can be instantly detected whereas with the on premise one it may days or even weeks to detect a breach
• Prevents data loss: With a cloud-based server, all the information you’ve uploaded to the cloud remains safe and accessible. While in the on premise, there is a greater possibility of data loss if the local system dysfunctions
• Automatically updates: Cloud based systems automatically refresh and update themselves whereas in the on premise model updates have to happen manually
• Multi-Tenacity: Spreading resource costs across a larger number of organizations means a lower cost per each user
 

Omni-Channel Experience on the Cloud | Servion Watch Video
 

Challenges in Cloud Analytics

As adoption of cloud analytics becomes rapid, there is a concern regarding data governance. The reasons being:  

• As usage of cloud-based applications increase, there is lot of inconsistent business data which cannot be trusted or reused
• As all kinds of data are sourced in, overriding an organization’s firewall, the organization loses internal control and requires a new governance model
• Data integration becomes difficult- Incorporating cloud-based data assets including analytics into the data and governance process is far more complicated than on premise model
• Business units bypass IT and any existing governing processes while buying cloud-based applications as they feel it is not necessary
• Licencing limits – cloud licencing can limit the organization’s use of cloud data such as how it can be repurposed or redeployed
• Lack of skilled resources – Lack of resources who are skilled or experts in cloud analytics and security is a major concern
• Data movement is difficult – Significant volumes of data are usually moved to the cloud and it is a real challenge to make this movement a seamless one
• Cloud services are not standardized – Some services are pay-as-you-go while others are fixed rate. The challenge is in finding out the right model that fits your budget and need

Though there are some challenges, yet with all its processing power, scale, and economics, cloud analytics is the future and is a major competitive differentiator that provides the edge.

• How Servion provides a unique approach to adapt the cloud ?

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/customer-journey-analytics-need/ Wed, 21 Feb 2018 11:45:41 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=287 Enterprises are overflowing with customer data, whether banking, telecom, healthcare or any other industry. With all this information tying them down, currently there are very few possibilities to connect it all together, and Customer Journey Analytics is one of them. It has been about five years since Big Data and Analytics has emerged as a […]

The post What Is Customer Journey Analytics And Why You Really Need It appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> Enterprises are overflowing with customer data, whether banking, telecom, healthcare or any other industry. With all this information tying them down, currently there are very few possibilities to connect it all together, and Customer Journey Analytics is one of them. It has been about five years since Big Data and Analytics has emerged as a powerful catalyst in the world of customer experience.

Now, Customer Journey Analytics has become a game-changer for enterprises looking to build long-lasting and meaningful customer relationships.

What exactly is Customer Journey Analytics?

Gartner defines Customer Journey Analytics as a way of tracking and analyzing how customer use combinations of channels to interact with an organization, and it covers all channels – present and future – which interface directly with customers.

 
“Data are just summaries of thousands of stories – tell a few of those stories to help make the data meaningful”
Chip & Dan Heath (Bestselling Authors)
 

A completely data-driven approach, it helps connect millions of interactions into customer journeys. It benefits enterprises, marketers and CX professionals to identify opportunities and understand customers at a personal level.

Customer Journey Analytics software makes it easy to plan and strategize the end experience. It acts as a reference that organizations can rely upon while developing operational strategies and setting experience goals. It simplifies personalization of customer interactions by leveraging data sciences to analyze touchpoints.

Before getting to the crux of what Customer Journey Analytics really is, it is important to understand the difference between journey analytics and journey mapping. And how they can be put together to drive superior CX.

 

How Does Digital Disruption Impact Customer Experience | ServionWatch Video
 

Understanding the role of Customer Journey Analytics

For real-time customer engagement, integrating Customer Journey Analytics and Big Data is key. The analytics component should combine advanced analytics, big data technology, and functional expertise. This can help in mapping the customer journeys and understanding the buyer mindset, and the actions each one takes at every step of the journey. With this, organizations get a unified 360-degree view of the customer.

In order to define the customer’s journey, customer’s journey should be clearly mapped, from start to finish. This detailed structure is an informative way of understanding how a customer becomes aware of a brand, and how the interaction progresses across the purchase possibilities.

This pathway strategically allows organizations to put forth ideas and plot the kind of information (how, when and why) that must be supplied to the customer to achieve a purchase decision from the customer.

Here are the steps that a customer’s journey includes:

 
Zoom Image
 
• Search: User starts on a path by looking for products or services that suit his or her use cause
• Discover: User narrows down the results to a set of services or products that meet his or her needs
• Consider: User then evaluates the short-listed set of products and services based on various factors
• Decide: User proceeds to make a decision on a particular service or product
• Sign up: User moves on to complete the sign up process that is required to begin using the chosen product
• Personalize: User/buyer personalizes the service or product to suit his/her requirements
• Act: User now uses the service or product
• Engage: User spends a remarkable amount of time using the service or product. This is when they try to recommend the service or product within their personal/professional networks
• Abandon: During this stage, User exhibits diminishing usage of the service or product
• Exit: User ceases to use the product or service entirely
 

5 Benefits Of Customer Journey Mapping | ServionWatch Video
 

Apart from this, customer journey analytics also focuses on servicing the customer throughout the engagement with the service provider. There may be negative and positive behavioral trends that surface during the human-to-system, human-to-human or system-to-system interaction. With the data that is collected during the communication, organizations can calculate – with the help of reporting tools – the right channels and reasons behind the spike of complaints, revenue or opportunities for new customer acquisitions.

Equipped with the knowledge, they can realign functions to deliver superior customer experience across channels, and not just limited to the contact center.

Customer Journey Analytics vs Customer Journey Mapping

On one hand, journey analytics gives a unified picture of customer demographic data based on age, geographic location, types of services availed, etc. The journey map, however, is a detailed visual representation of the individual customer’s engagement on any channel of communication with the organization.

 
“The goal is to turn data into information, and information into insight”
Carly Fiorina (Former CEO of HP)
 

While the two have a common goal – customer satisfaction, customer journey analytics gives the bigger picture as it based on big data of individual interactions.

Unlike an individual or micro customer journey, customer journey analytics is macro by nature. It significantly empowers organizations to categorize customers, for example, on the basis of their ideal way to stay in touch with the brand.

 
Zoom Image
 

How does Customer Journey Analytics help improve customer experience?

For marketing

The Customer Journey Analytics software is a marketer’s dream fulfilled. With its support, they can spot opportunities to launch targeted promotional campaigns that can increase ROI and cross-sell/upsell products. This can also maximize the organization’s exposure with personalized and customized communication.

For the contact center

The contact center is responsible for most of the customer’s journey. The heart of day-to-day interactions occurs as interactions where the middlemen are agents or self-service systems and processes from the enterprise’s side.

Contact center and analytics technology have evolved because of omni-channel customer interaction.With this comprehensive view of data that is collected across channels, Customer Journey Analytics is assured to work. It is also a strategic asset to the business.

Once data is analyzed, patterns will appear about the challenges faced by groups of customers face before they complete the journey, or move forward to the next stage. For example, it may show that customers prefer using the website as the primary mode of communication over any other channel.

Data that is collected and stored during these stages of customer interaction are vital to the contact center. With this inferences can be made by connecting the dots and discovering the path and strategy to a productive and positive customer experience journey.

For the enterprise

According to Garner in the next three years, 60% of digital commerce analytics investments will be spent on journey analytics. For enterprises, the importance of CX will only continue to grow and journey analytics is a powerful weapon that your enterprises can use to keep their customers loyal and happy. For the customer

Journey analytics will benefit the customer. Even though there may be hiccups on the way to end of the customer journey, it is with the help of the customer data that those problems will be solved and further help more customers along the way.

 

Omni-Channel Experience on the Cloud | Servion Watch Video
 

Gain competitive advantage with Customer Journey Analytics

Customer Journey Mapping & Visualization

Get a visual representation of every interaction a customer has had with the enterprise, showing every step the customers have taken on their journey. Infused with digital analytics into customer journey map it elevates and enhances the experience.

Integrate Data, Gain a 360 Degree View

Integrate, connect and visualize data from all channels and touchpoints. With it, organizations can classify who the customer is, what they own, what channels they prefer and know what they are trying to achieve, and more importantly their frustrations.

Predictive Analytics

Leverage data to gain actionable and precise insights on what customers are likely to do, what CSAT problems are likely to face, and what campaigns are likely to succeed.

Behavior Analytics

Gain an accurate understanding of the types of products and customer types that are most profitable. From basic transactional insights about who bought what, when and through which channels to what is likely to happen.

Customer Intent Mining

Customers want a personable and seamless experience. One where they don’t need to say time and again who they are or why they are calling. Identify their intent based on behavioral, transactional and event history.

Multi-dimensional Analytics

Discover hidden customer journey patterns, slice and dice to perform trend analysis. Tap into trends, and gain new perspectives based on segments, and use multidimensional analysis to improve agent performance.

Conclusion

Customer Journey Analytics allow organizations understand both the quantitative and qualitative data in each step of the journey. While the journey map is essential, it is only one part of the picture. Journey analytics is what brings it to life.

Today, enterprises are constantly thinking of end-to-end customer journeys and how they engage with the brand. Keeping this in mind, it is the perfect time for the enterprises to began investing and implementing a customer journey analytics strategy. With it, you can focus on the highest impact journeys and deliver real-time and personalized customer experinece.

• How to become awesome at Contact Center Analytics?

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• How Servion delivered omni-channel excellence for a leading bank in India?

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• How to deliver effortless superior omni-channel customer experience?

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/experience-design-to-redefine-cx/ Thu, 15 Feb 2018 11:21:41 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=331 Technology is woven into the fabric of our lives. From the moment we wake until the time we hit the bed, it is an intricate part of how we experience life itself. We love technology because it helps in simplifying tasks – from accessing information to automating experience. However complex or run-of-the-mill an activity may […]

The post Experience Design To Redefine CX appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> Technology is woven into the fabric of our lives. From the moment we wake until the time we hit the bed, it is an intricate part of how we experience life itself. We love technology because it helps in simplifying tasks – from accessing information to automating experience. However complex or run-of-the-mill an activity may otherwise be, it drastically reduces the amount of time we spend on them. In some sense, it enables us to do things that we may not be able to ourselves.

ore importantly, technology has always thrived on our growing capacity to constantly seek improvements in experience; the way we consume data, how we interpret it, and the speed at which we perform actions based on our derivations. Expectedly, businesses all over the world have been innovating and capitalizing on this primal human urge for easier, faster and better solutions. In order to fine-tune or upgrade the experience they provide to their customers, businesses find themselves perennially jogging on a treadmill of innovation. Now more than ever, they look to break free from the limitations of legacy systems, and redefine experience design – from understanding what their customers want to how they are providing it.

 
“Experience Design is a method by which we can improve the quality of the outcome for the user while working within resource constraints. It’s gaining attention at the moment because it’s becoming more widely accepted that if we can improve outcomes for customers, we can improve outcomes for business”
Tom Wood (Senior UX designer)
 

However, it can be said that most experiences are subjective because human perception is an evolving process that is based on individualistic traits. Hence, designing a great experience does not always comprise a series of executable tasks. There are no clear-cut templates for businesses to follow. Experience design is a way of thinking. As much a philosophy as it is a science.

So, how do business go about designing suitable experiences? Do they adopt a one-size-fits-all methodology? Or do they cast a large net of experiences so that they can cater to a wider group of customers looking to bite?

 
“Customer experience designers can define experiences that extend beyond the purchase of a product or service. A good purchase experience, or even user experience, doesn’t guarantee future business. To ensure feasibility of a business, customers must remain engaged, and this requires thinking across all stages of the relationship”
Patrick Newberry (Industry Expert & Author)
 

The crux of Experience Design lies in identifying what we sell as value distributors and treating our customers as value ambassadors. Customers are more than just users. The journeys they undertake, as consumers of your brand, go beyond the destination that either of you have in mind. It is a framework for continuous value generation, acceptance and distribution because a great design implies a proactive approach to identifying and fixing gaps between what customers want, and how a business provides it to them.

 

CXChange 2017: Scaling Without Compromise | Customer Experience In The Digital EraWatch Video
 

Given the inundation of Big Data and Analytics into the CX ecosystem, there is enough information out there to leverage in order to create true value for customers. In today’s fiercely competitive marketplace, being proactive is not a luxury. It is crucial towards the survival, not just success, of the brand. Artificial Intelligence too, is playing a key role in urging businesses to redefine Experience Design along with rising customer expectations. Advancements such as Smart Assistants, Augmented and Virtual Reality are automating experiences and reshaping how customers attain end satisfaction. These days, they want to be more empowered with the ability to craft their own experiences. And they expect brands to give them the necessary tools to achieve what they perceive to be a comfortable and satisfying service journey.

 
“By 2020 a customer will manage 85% of the relationship with an enterprise without interacting with a human”
Gartner
 
 
“89% of customers get frustrated because they need to repeat their issues to multiple representatives”
Accenture
 

But, going back to Experience Design being a strategic guide rather than a structured rulebook, it does not mean that merely implementing effective self-service options or ensuring omni-channel consistency is a guarantee for profitability or even sustained customer acquisition. After all, a highly-attractive website, a super-responsive mobile app or some of the best trained agents that money can buy can get you far in the battle for customer experience. To win the whole shebang, though, businesses must take into account multiple factors that may affect the experience. Right from the pre-production blueprint stage to the post-purchase care stage, there are moving pieces that need to be influenced. Such changes should start reflecting in budgetary allocations, technology implementation, resource utilization and overall growth strategy.

After all, when the dust settles – all customers want are great experiences. Businesses succeed when they seek to constantly improve the experience without any prompt from the customer.

It is when they create competitive differentiation.

It is when they succeed.

• This article was originally published in NASSCOM’s official blog

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/artificial-intelligence-vs-machine-learning/ Thu, 08 Feb 2018 11:07:04 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=360 Stuck in traffic? Move forward with Google Maps that uses anonymized location data from smartphones to analyze speed of traffic movement at any given time. Want a product recommendation? Check out Amazon that uses artificial neural networks to generate product recommendations. Self-driving cars, autopilot, mobile check deposit, smart personal assistants like Alexa, Siri, Cortana, Netflix […]

The post Is Artificial Intelligence (AI) Different From Machine Learning? appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> Stuck in traffic? Move forward with Google Maps that uses anonymized location data from smartphones to analyze speed of traffic movement at any given time. Want a product recommendation? Check out Amazon that uses artificial neural networks to generate product recommendations. Self-driving cars, autopilot, mobile check deposit, smart personal assistants like Alexa, Siri, Cortana, Netflix are no longer unimaginable. One of the biggest advancements is the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML).

Google, Amazon, Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram and the likes have popularized these two terms. But are they one and same? Is there any difference between the two? Often, they are used interchangeably. For many, the difference between them is still unclear.

The term ‘Artificial Intelligence’ was termed by the American Scientist, John McCarthy, as early as 1955. AI systems, based on deep neural networks, analyze huge amounts of data, identify, classify input patterns, predict and operate unsupervised. They change behaviors without being explicitly programmed, based on the data collected, usage analysis and other observations. There are two different kinds of AI – General and Special Purpose.


The Rise of Artificial Intelligence through Deep Learning | Yoshua Bengio | TEDxMontrealWatch Video

General purpose AI are platforms that support a broad range of solutions which includes natural language, dialogue management and text analytics. This type of AI assumes human-like capabilities and it can stand-alone. This is what is most commonly portrayed in Hollywood movies – Skynet in Terminator or Ultron in Avengers. On the other hand, special-purpose AI effectively solves a dedicated problem and often exploits very specific features of the situation in which the problem is embedded. Examples include image recognition, computer chess and self-driving cars.

Machine Learning on the other hand is a technical discipline that aims to extract certain kinds of patterns from a series of observations. This involves training a machine to learn from a large amount of data that is fed into it using algorithms. It uses mathematical models to extract knowledge from data. With a given set of observations, ML heuristically searches for a best-fit function.

With huge amounts of digital data being generated, and with the realization that computers can be taught how to think – ML, where machines are coded to think like humans, has emerged. Thanks to the advancement of neural networks that has been instrumental in teaching computers to understand the way we do things.

 

 

But what is neural network? It is a computer system that works on probabilities, and is designed to classify information just as how a human brain does. The more data the machine has at its disposal, the more accurate the predictions will be. Machine Learning algorithm is capable of learning and acting without programmers specifying every possibility within the data set.

It is to be noted that it is not necessary for an algorithm to understand exactly why it self-corrects, only how it can be more accurate in the future. Once the algorithm has learnt, it can be used in systems that actually appear to possess intelligence.

 

Virtual Assistant – powered by Artificial Intelligence | ServionWatch Video
 

The easiest way to understand Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning is to imagine them as concentric circles. AI forms the outer circle while ML and Deep Learning, which are subsets of Artificial Intelligence, comprise inner circles.

Usually, personal assistants and other bots that aid with specialized tasks come under AI. This includes search capabilities applications, filtering and shortlisting applications, voice recognition and text-to-speech conversion bundled into an agent. Those that include big data analytics, data mining, and pattern recognition belong to Machine Learning. These systems involve systems that ‘learn’ from data and apply that learning to a specific task.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are  emerging technologies that are set to revolutionize the business world. They have the ability to reduce labor costs, generate new insights, discover new patterns and create predictive models from raw data yet none can match the breadth of human intelligence.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/happy-contact-center-agents/ Thu, 25 Jan 2018 10:01:55 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=406 The key to a successful business is a stream of happy customers willing to repeatedly purchase your products or services. One of the ways to ensure that your customers are satisfied is to ensure that your contact center agents handle them well. According to the Employee Engagement Benchmark study 2017, conducted by the Temkin group […]

The post How Happy Are Your Contact Center Agents? appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> The key to a successful business is a stream of happy customers willing to repeatedly purchase your products or services. One of the ways to ensure that your customers are satisfied is to ensure that your contact center agents handle them well. According to the Employee Engagement Benchmark study 2017, conducted by the Temkin group highly-engaged employees are almost five times more likely to recommend the company’s products and services. Only contact center agents, who are happy and contended with the work that they do, would care to engage the customer the right way. Unhappy contact center agents are disengaged, which means their productivity and the quality of their work is low. As the cliché goes, “Happy contact center agents= Happy customers”. The quality of the customer interactions are affected by the quality of work experience of contact center agents.

Your business will not thrive for long – if your customers make a beeline to your competition based on poor customer service. The benefit of having highly motivated and engaged agents who step into office every morning is what every organization desires.

Here are some suggestions on how you can ensure just that:

(1) Communicate a compelling customer experience vision to your agents:

A clearly defined customer experience vision provides a sense of purpose for the agents. How does a compelling vision translate into action? It creates an emotional connect between the customers and agents, it delivers customer value as it shows the organization understands what their customers want, it is simple to understand and it shows commitment setting customers and employers expectations right.

(2) Encourage transparency:

If you want to keep your best agents happy you have to be transparent. Communication should be more open between all levels of the organization. Learn to trust them and empower them with a transparent company culture.

(3) Provide a comfortable workspace:

You need to have a pulse on how your contact center is working. You need to be aware of the various tools your agents are using to perform their jobs. Make a few calls to see if you are able to hear your customer’s voice. Ask agents’ about their opinions on the tools they use. Are the instruments working fine? Is the seating and other arrangements comfortable? Is the ambience conducive to productivity?

(4) Offer professional development opportunities:

Design the workplace with a sense of equity. Leaders at all levels should be available to access as front line executives. Give challenging projects and opportunities for personal and professional growth. If possible, allow them to switch their physical locations. Encourage them to explore what interests them and allow them to try something new.

(5) Build relationships with co-workers:

Often, people work with a diverse group of colleagues with different skill sets, backgrounds, values and interests. Therefore it is natural for tension to build. Especially, it is an environment where people depend on each other to accomplish their goals. Help your team build better relationships with their colleagues. Try to bring people of different teams together to work for a common project. Plan picnics and outings where different teams are involved which will help them to bond together.

 

 

(6) Motivate your team:

Boost your team’s morale by appreciating a job well done. Recognition programs reinforce the accomplishments of employees. A year-end gratification with bonus does not always offer the right sort of job satisfaction. Celebrate small wins and appreciate your agents in front of their co-workers. Sometimes, a word of praise is all it takes to keep their morale up.

(7) Link Employee engagement score with key business metrics:

Most organizations measure employee engagement by means of a survey. This includes organization-employee fit, job fit, motivation, dedication, organizational support, work-life balance etc. The team leads should work with HR team to understand the current engagement strategy and check if it can be enhanced to receive regular feedback. This score has to be linked with other business metrics so that it is easier to track and monitor as well as focus on the right engagement investments.

(8) Make training as part of your culture:

Contact center agents are eager to develop new skills that will make them more successful in their current position, as well as to grow in the industry. Providing Recognition programs reinforce the accomplishments of employees. will ensure that they are better able to handle customer interactions.

(9) Create a happy environment:

Who likes to work in a dull, boring office? Creating a positive and vibrant environment for your agents to be fully engaged at work is crucial. Small gestures to make the workplace more enjoyable will be greatly appreciated by them. It is important that the customer service team receives adequate respect.

(10) Find champions:

Last but not the least, find champions who will “walk the talk” and be passionate about your customer experience vision. They will become role models and strong influencers who can motivate the team.

The happiness of your contact center agents determines a lot of factors that impact your business, from productivity to engagement and overall retention. It is more important than ever before to keep your agents happy as it is becoming increasingly difficult for contact centers to retain informed, connected and motivated customer service agents. Take a leap of faith and believe that happy contact center agents do create happy customers.

The post How Happy Are Your Contact Center Agents? appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> https://servion.com/blog/2018-bfsi-customer-experience-trends/ Tue, 23 Jan 2018 13:07:33 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=442 The BFSI industry has been in the center of disruptive changes in recent years, and they are poised for another transformative year in 2018; especially, on their customer engagement front. The industry will leave behind traditional banking methods and go on to embrace digital transformation. Successful banks will realign their strategy and invest in technology […]

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]]> The BFSI industry has been in the center of disruptive changes in recent years, and they are poised for another transformative year in 2018; especially, on their customer engagement front. The industry will leave behind traditional banking methods and go on to embrace digital transformation. Successful banks will realign their strategy and invest in technology that can automate processes and drive more meaningful conversations with tech-savvy customers. Here is a forecast of CX trends in BFSI that are likely to see an early adoption in 2018.

Embracing Open Banking

Open banking, also known as Open Bank Data, will be the latest innovation of financial technology that banks will adopt. The customers are already rooting for it. This involves the usage of APIs to allow customers to switch and carry on transactions from one bank to another. This Banking-as-a-Service model (BaaS) will encourage banks to be transparent about their service offerings. It also allows customers to switch between accounts and avail a more personalized service at a considerably lesser cost. By factoring this innovation in their technology investment plans, banks will be in a position to increase customer satisfaction and drive maximum loyalty from them.

Expansion of Digital Economy

The ongoing advancement of Digital Economy will go full steam ahead this year. New digital initiatives will offer online financial services to the growing crowd of people using mobile apps. Banks will make a move to gradually replace their legacy systems, in addition to infrastructure changes required to be future-ready and millennial- friend. The adoption of Bitcoin currencies will be widespread, and its demand will keep rising. The cryptocurrency payments are already the acceptable mode of payments in few countries. Safe to say that with proper regulation, we will be moving towards a cashless society.

Simpler and Highly Secure Authentication

Biometric-based customer recognition created from fingerprint, retina, iris, voice, and face will rise as a preferred authentication two-way verification process. Currently, customers require multiple levels of a password to ensure their financial wealth and identity remains safe. This will slowly change in 2018. Banks will embrace advanced biometrics authentication methods to improve customer identity management along with mitigating the risk of security breach. However, by using multifactor biometric authentication the security levels can be stacked up higher making it extremely difficult for fraudsters to imitate true users.

 

 

Digital Personal Financial Management

2018, will be the year where customers will want to employ Digital Money Managers. It will simplify money management for the average Joes by offering spending insights, budgeting recommendations, tools and overall guidance for those who need to manage their wealth on the go. Banks can benefit by offering personalized digital finance management assistance, which in turn, will strengthen the customer-bank relationship and unveil new sales opportunities. To make it successful, banks need to be proactive and help their customers make smart financial decisions.

Banking on the Cloud

The cloud has evolved from being a hesitant ‘should we?’ to a confident ‘yes, we must’ technology for the BFSI industry. Going pro-cloud opens up a lot of benefits, including exponential cost reduction. Global accessibility, ease of deployment, scope to build new applications and test it out on-premise are some of the best of the rest that comes along with cloud adoption. In 2018, the cloud will become increasingly secure by committing to rigorous security monitoring. This has been a barrier that hindered the adoption of cloud in 2017. Next year, this will all set to change.

Growing with Artificial Intelligence

It is clear that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the BFSI sector for good. This will only continue to boom in 2018, as well. Chatbots and virtual assistants will lead the change for delivering outstanding customer experience through increased self-service and improved operational efficiencies. Machine learning algorithms will also be able to detect frauds and improve the security of critical financial data.

Going Big with Big Data & IoT

Big Data has enabled the banks to embrace the Internet of Things (IoT) with open arms. It can open up cross-selling possibilities for financial services, including insurance covers. Big data can leverage customer insights to offer a more personalized and proactive experience. By investing in right IoT technology and integrating with Big Data, it allows ease of transactions in an interconnected world.

In 2017, some of these predictions were just buzzwords and this will be customer experience trends for 2018. They will be increasing going digital in all areas possible. 2018 will be challenging in converting these predictions into action. The success of this will largely depend on the speed of execution and the overall value they offer their customers. To stay on top of competition banks need to be on the top tier of financial technology innovation.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/10-factors-robotic-process-automation-implementation/ Thu, 18 Jan 2018 09:50:42 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=514 Automation is not new and in today’s business world automation is everywhere. But the proliferation of automation artificial intelligence tools continues to grow leaps and bounds. While Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a viable option when organizations have to replace or assist manual workers, it doesn’t mean that RPA is the solution to all of […]

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]]> Automation is not new and in today’s business world automation is everywhere. But the proliferation of automation artificial intelligence tools continues to grow leaps and bounds. While Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a viable option when organizations have to replace or assist manual workers, it doesn’t mean that RPA is the solution to all of the business problems. It might be tempting to dive headlong into automation just because others are into it only to realise that you have burnt your finger in the process. Before you plunge right in, there are a few things you have to keep in mind.

(1) Understand the process you are automating

The most important step is figuring out which processes you want to automate and which could be best solved by RPA. You can evaluate automation process either by yourself or with the support of consultants, system integrators, and business process outsourcing companies. Take time to evaluate the process, and where necessary, change it.

(2) Charter a clear roadmap

Start with a clear list of benefits and limitations of robotic process automation to business stakeholders. Much disappointment starts when you apply tools in less than optimal ways or apply it to wrong processes. Start by asking which processes are suitable for RPA? Is there a software/tool that is already available for the activity you are trying to automate? How will you monitor the Robots activities? What would you do if the RPA tool malfunctions or stops?

(3) Choose the right tool

There are a number of robotic process automation software available on the market today. Some robotic process automation tools support unattended automation while others run as a robotic desktop application, some come with their own metalanguage, while some have a record button to make a pass at the typical path of a process, some come with configurable dedicated process automation tools while some have no pre-programmed processes. Enterprise architecture and technology leaders must understand the differences in technical functionality of the robotic process automation tools to select the right software platform. Remember there may not be a single tool available that may meet all your requirements.

(4) Get your teams ready

First and foremost formalize your IT teams’ involvement as early as possible. This is necessary to get maximum business value. They need to understand why robotic process automation is different from the other tools and what security measures have to be taken care in deployment. Identify any potential gaps in skills and prioritize them by impact and need and hire necessary skill sets and expertise in automation to fit your purpose. Help your technical teams adopt the new technology. It is not just enough if you automate and leave, it has to be adopted by the team. People do not embrace change easily. Identify and build necessary skills and provide enough training to any workflow automation you introduce.

 

 

(5) Standardize your environment

Automating a diverse environment is complex. This is because to ensure that each step is executed and completed successfully you need workflow checks and balances in place which results in longer, highly risky and more complex processes. But in a standardized environment, the processes are simpler because automation is done in a known state and the time and effort required are less. The standardized environment also reduces risks of errors, requires fewer support requirements and skills, and improves logging, tracking and performance analysis.

(6) Ensure proper review

Estimate the amount of work a robot needs to perform. This has to be carefully defined and tested. Testing is critical to success. Activities that advent frequent changes may not be suitable for robotic process automation. During production, continuously monitor. Dashboards might come in handy.

(7) Curtail costs

Automation investments go beyond just investing in the tool. More often the process of automation may cost twice as much as the tool itself. Manage carefully cost for implementation, setup and customization. Depending on the project scale, diversity and complexity the cost will vary. Be careful not to allow for scope creep. For this, you have to ensure that your objectives are clear and well-defined.

(8) Calculate ROI of automation

Automation isn’t easy. Estimate the time and cost savings that automating a process will give and compare it with the actual time and cost it has taken to automate. This will give you the Return on your Investment (ROI). Prioritize automating processes that will save you the most time and at the same time provide the biggest ROI.

(9) Quality matters

Define high quality control standards. Like any other computer systems, automation software will also have its own bugs. A poorly defined automation procedure can introduce issues much faster than any human process and its implications could be widespread and damaging. To realise the value of automation, it must be treated like any other software development process and include requirements, scoping, acceptance testing, validation, support and revision tracking.

(10) Think futuristic

Don’t plan for short-term automations, have a long time goal in mind. Always make sure that the solution you employ has the flexibility to adapt to future changes.

Service providers have been investing in automation for a long time but only recently automation has gained priority. According to Gartner, ‘Through 2021, cost savings from automation will range from 2% and 5% which will further the ongoing deployment of automation”. However, don’t just focus on reducing labor costs while going in for automation. There are many more factors to consider before you automate. It is wise to consider all the factors before you automate!

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/b2b-technology-marketing-expect-2018-beyond/ Tue, 16 Jan 2018 11:17:26 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=531 The first thing that comes to your mind when you think of B2B Marketing, is a lackluster world of data sheets, product brochures, and death by PowerPoint presentations. While marketing is perceived as a glitzy profession, the average B2B marketer has remained an indigent stepsister of the B2C marketer. But, looking at the pace at […]

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]]> The first thing that comes to your mind when you think of B2B Marketing, is a lackluster world of data sheets, product brochures, and death by PowerPoint presentations. While marketing is perceived as a glitzy profession, the average B2B marketer has remained an indigent stepsister of the B2C marketer. But, looking at the pace at which B2B technology brands are embracing marketing, things are about to change – change fast.

Here are Six B2B Technology Marketing Trends that will drive your attention in 2018 and beyond. While some these predictions may not come as a surprise, it will surely serve as a cue to the dramatic transformation we are witnessing in the business-to-business technology marketplace.

#1 The line between B2B and B2C marketing will blur in 2018

We are prone to assume B2B buyers are emotionless left-brained bargain hunters. But research shows a dramatic shift in their demographics and customer journeys. According to a study by Google and Millward Brown, 46% of potential buyers researching b-to-b products are millennials today. There is acceptance in the marketplace that emotions account for a good 50% of their buying decisions.

 
“The individual buyer may claim that their choice is rational because it helps them do their job better than any other brand. However, a hidden emotional driver may be that the decision makes the individual look good or feel proud and this may be something that they can’t admit to on a conscious level.”
B2B International
 

Take Away for the B2B Marketer: To stay relevant to this audience, B2B marketers need to start looking at marketing more like B2C brands. They need to humanize the buyer, carefully track their buying journeys and offer them an on-brand experience. As the lines between B2B & B2C blur, the focus should be on a P2P (person to person) experience where the CIO is treated as a person first and then as an institutional buyer.

#2 Marketing will become a primary source of differentiation for B2B Technology Brands in 2018

We live and operate in an undifferentiated world, where there is a lack of distinction – not just in products but in branding messages too. According to a Gartner research, less than 25% of B2B buyers find any differentiation between their vendors. Nearly 79% of B2B technology buyers say product messaging sound the same, while 74% find features and functionalists undifferentiated.

 

 

Take Away for the B2B Marketer: To remain competitive, B2B marketers need to take cognizance of this in 2018 and help their brands differentiate with smart marketing. 2017 already has seen some action in this space with market-leading brands going through makeovers and refresh projects. As the market watches them reap the fruits of differentiation, more and more B2B brands will move away from monotony and step forward to use marketing as a strategic driver of differentiation.

#3 Content marketing will shift from just building ‘brochures’ and ‘data sheets’ to storytelling in 2018

51% of B2B buyers rely on content now to research their buying decisions. They want shorter and more interactive content that educates rather than sells. B2B buyers are tired of the same old wine in new bottles, yet the average B2B marketer spends more time building product brochures, data sheets and reams of inward-looking content that aims to sell. Outcomes from a content preference survey offer the following insights:

• 73% of B2B buyers view case studies during their research
• 96% of B2B buyers want content with more input from industry thought leaders
• 47% of B2B buyers viewed three to five pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep

Source: Content preferences survey report from Demand Gen Report

Take Away for the B2B Marketer: To achieve a better ROI from their content marketing efforts, B2B marketers need to adopt storytelling as a strategic priority. Marketing resources with an ability to breathe life back into droning corporate messages will be preferred over conventional content writers. There will be concentrated effort into building content that is engaging, entertaining, and enticing – something that doesn’t sound exasperatingly salesy.

 

 

#4 The in-house agency model will come of age in 2018

Conventional B2B technology brands do not invest in-house marketing teams as much as the rest of the world and have a high dependency on external agencies. This naturally translates into lesser control over content, higher costs, lack of consistency and agility – limiting both the quality & quantity of content and campaigns. By bringing to bear seasoned & creative professionals in-house, forward-looking B2B brands have started driving more accountability. And, to attract and retain such talent, these brands have also started offering a vibrant agency-like work culture.

This strategy may not work for all brands and it’s also impossible to insource every elements and function of marketing. Most brands will continue to depend on trusted external agencies to plug skill gaps in specific areas such as PR, event management, and market research.

Take Away for the B2B Marketer: In 2018, B2B marketers need to take matters into their own hands and work on moving most critical marketing functions in-house. Full spectrum marketing teams that mimic external agencies, not just in capabilities and skills but in their vibrancy, will outshine the competition. This approach offers them the agility to respond to internal & external stakeholders at the speed of thought. Just not to overcook, specialized functions like PR, are best left to the specialists.

#5 Automation will no longer be a choice, but table stakes in 2018

Automation has been on the minds of B2B technology brands for years, yet their state of readiness, knowledge, and skills have been far from the adequate. Marketers now have access to the more technology than ever before. As technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Advanced Analytics and Big Data further advance making adoption easy, there will be an increased drive to better them to manage content and drive marketing ROI.

In 2018 more and more B2B brands will integrate their content strategy with marketing automation to ensure the right content is used in the right phase of the customer journey

Take Away for the B2B Marketer: B2B marketers will be forced to skill themselves in marketing automation to remain productive. It will help them to be more productive, generate and nurture leads, manage social channels, offer personalized content, gather customer insights, run account-based marketing, and drive marketing ROI.

#6 Data-driven digital marketing will continue to edge over offline spends in 2018

B2B Technology brands will spend more budgets on Marketing for all the 5 above-mentioned reasons and more. But as a note of caution, higher budgets don’t mean more thoughtless spending, buying higher sponsorship packages or executing events at fancier hotels. In 2018, brands will look to rebalance their marketing mix and invest more only in tried-and-true tactics and areas. Data-driven digital marketing tactics will see an increased spending.

For the last 3 – 4 years, digital spends has been on the rise; in 2018, it will climb further. According to Gartner, three factors contributing to this shifting spend pattern include:

Take Away for the B2B Marketer: All said and done, the raison d’etre of marketing is to fuel business growth i.e. generate more qualified leads. Digital marketing allows marketers to run hyper-targeted marketing campaigns, offer contextual content, nurture leads and above all – offer a better customer experience. B2B marketers should take a digital-first approach as they plan their marketing-mix for 2018 and stay away from any tactic that doesn’t allow them to hyper-target or measure ROI.

The post B2B Technology Marketing: What To Expect In 2018 And Beyond appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> https://servion.com/blog/blockchain-the-go-to-technology-for-cx/ Wed, 10 Jan 2018 04:36:11 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=587 Planning a holiday is a laborious task. From booking flights and hotels, putting on paper the places to visit and activities to keep engaged, there’s a lot of time and effort that you put in to perfect the itinerary. Or you might be someone who lets a vendor or travel agent do your planning with […]

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]]> Planning a holiday is a laborious task. From booking flights and hotels, putting on paper the places to visit and activities to keep engaged, there’s a lot of time and effort that you put in to perfect the itinerary. Or you might be someone who lets a vendor or travel agent do your planning with all-inclusive packaged tours.

Whichever option you pick, there is definitely one major question involved. How do you reassure yourself that the destination or the hotel, is the right choice? Based on ratings, reviews and recommendations from travelers, on a platform that is accessible, yet permanent.

Similarly, in terms of Airbnb, the rating game goes both ways, the host gives the customer a rating and vice versa. While this rating allows the parent company to track performances of its hosts and judge them on their people skills. The customer rating, on the other hand, could make you less desirable than everyone else. So, if you had a rating of three or lesser it decides whether you will be accepted by hosts on future bookings.

This peer-to-peer interaction currently takes place on a channel, but with blockchain, it removes the need for an intermediary. This may give rise to a citizen-to-citizen model that is disrupting the world of technology.

What is Blockchain?

It is a shared, distributed ledger that records transactions and assets on a network. These assets could be both tangible and intangible. These lists of records are called blocks and are made secure using cryptography. Each block has the following:

• A record/transaction data
• A hash pointer
• A previous hash pointer

The previous hash pointer creates the link between two blocks in order to create a chain. Blockchain databases allow data to be stored in a decentralized manner and let businesses work in collaboration over the internet.

What does Blockchain do?

Any value can be tracked on a blockchain network. Technology-wise, it permits multiple users to access, inspect or modify data, but that depends on the role each customer plays in each business. This helps in minimizing risks as they are tamper resistant.

When enterprises work together in a blockchain environment, information is readily available and transparent during interactions.

Zoom Image

How does Blockchain play a crucial role in transforming customer experience?

In any customer-to-business or business-to-business exchange, there are a few things that need attention in the journey from pre-purchase through to post-purchase. Seamless interactions across channels, personalized service, and proactive support are the key factors. But it boils down to the trust and the brand promise that a business focuses on.

With that in mind, here are four ways in which blockchain is changing the CX industry.

1) Distributed:

Peer-to-peer transactions are open and eliminate the need for a third-party vendors or intermediaries. The result – customers can have direct conversations and have a greater influence on the journey.

2) Secure:

Blockchains works on cryptography. By designing and analyzing protocols, it enables a layer of increased security for all information stored, protecting it from identity thefts and hackers.

3) Transparent:

Data stored in blockchain systems may be accessible to a large group, but as an immutable asset, it prevents any fraudulent activities from taking place. For example; car manufacturers can choose from a list of vendors/dealers in an architecture that includes NPS scores, customer retention rates and product defect rates.

4) Real-time updates:

Similar to the proactive offering from many customer experience enterprises, it ensures duplications are eliminated. These timely updates will raise the bar for customer experience expectations.



Will artificial intelligence have a role to play in Blockchain?

Gartner predicts that the global blockchain market is expected to worth about $20 billion by 2024. Combining the advancement in AI with blockchain throws open a bunch of opportunities for businesses. For example, in an online retail business blockchain architecture, that has a publicly available record of Big Data customer and product data and information. An AI-bot could be used to identify customers who are looking to make a purchase. This empowers bots to make a selection based on criteria that could include: price range, a timeframe of purchase and customer reviews and match them to the right service/provider. Once the right match is made, interactions will be recorded in an open ledger.

These open ledgers can be harvested by AI to match the right entities removing the need for mass email marketing campaigns and move over to personalized but real-time emails for each customer.

This growing technology gives businesses a few years to research and invest in blockchain. But the question is, in a consistently changing environment like today, are you ready to roll your socks up and get the ball rolling?

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/10-customer-experience-trends-watch-2018-2/ Thu, 04 Jan 2018 11:06:26 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=604 Customer experience (CX) has become the quintessential scale to choose between brands, and poor experience is a way of falling short in the buyer’s journey to seamless interaction. However, over time businesses have begun to adopt and understand that a key component to building their CX strategies is around the customer. With rising expectations, the […]

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]]> Customer experience (CX) has become the quintessential scale to choose between brands, and poor experience is a way of falling short in the buyer’s journey to seamless interaction. However, over time businesses have begun to adopt and understand that a key component to building their CX strategies is around the customer.

With rising expectations, the climb to the top is getting steeper in this rapidly evolving space. Each year there are predictions that CX will make the purchase decision easier and further improve the customer-business relationship. It has been rightly doing so with the increasing number of communication channels, CX metrics, and tools to support the point of contact.

According to Aberdeen, companies with the strongest omni-channel customer engagement strategies retain an average of 89% of their customers, as compared to 33% for companies with weak omni-channel strategies.

So, here’s how you can make every interaction count. Be relevant, and stay ahead of the competition with these top 10 customer experience trends to follow in 2018.

Trend #1: Shortened customer journeys

The journey mapping from pre-purchase to post-purchase is what businesses are focusing on currently with each step having several sub-steps, for instance, the self-service customer service desk. Over time, with CX technologies it has become easier to understand buying behavior and patterns through the historical data that is received.

But, brands are now looking to shorten each step of the journey and improve the experience by redefining the expectations in the process.

Trend #2: Machines are becoming partners rather than tools

According to Gartner, 85% of customer interactions will be managed without a human, by 2020. This has reflected in organizations adopting artificial intelligence technologies to reduce costs and increase productivity. As a part of the automation generation, it is critical to remain a competitive player in the market.

Keeping this in mind, many enterprises continue to reduce the cost burden by moving away from physical environments (eg; the contact center and agents) and employing bots and relying on them to perform repetitive tasks that otherwise a human being would take longer to complete.

Trend #3: Making experiences speak personalization

Whether it is a restaurant or an online retailer, personalization can be a part of any channel. Often, it is regarded as a benchmark for customers, when choosing between brands and staying loyal to them. This ability to personalize across channels is what will help enterprises succeed.

As customers come face-to-face with it, their expectations will also begin to increase, paving the way for organizations to track and monitor data and preferences to create more intelligent mechanisms of personalization using emerging technologies. For example, it will be about customized experiences during visits to hotels with individualistic entertainment or dining preferences.

Trend #4: Maintaining frictionless and consistent omnichannel communication

CX needs to be as uniform as possible, across any device or platform that your customers use to interact with you. In order to prevent any conflicts that may arise, enterprises are beginning to eliminate unlikely experiences, for instance, waiting in long billing queues and Amazon Go (a grocery store) chose to eliminate this challenge. Using a smartphone app along with sensors, items are tracked when they are removed or replaced on shelves, while the retailer knows exactly what is in the customer’s cart and upon exit are instantly charged to their account.

Trend #5: Higher-powered and Intelligent Virtual Assistants (IVA)

Right now, artificial virtual assistants are being used in many industries for a variety of processes. And with consumers growing comfortable speaking with bots, companies can maximize value from it, provided it creates a positive experience, making it a win-win situation.

The IVAs will be powered by artificial intelligence to match the level of human interaction and intelligence. They will be able to perform specialized tasks that are essential to provide superior CX.

Trend #6: Creating new challenges and opportunities with IoT

For a few years, Internet of Things has been trending and continues to be an area that is being heavily invested in. With IoT, the more the number of devices connected to a channel, the more possibilities to collect data and improve brand interactions.

IoT, for instance, allows contact centers to analyze data from millions of transactions and this can help accelerate proactive customer experience. IoT can also accelerate research and development.

With the help of user interaction data, companies can see how customers are using their products, and adjust future models to be more aligned to customer desires and behaviors.

Trend #7: Going mobile first

According to Smart Insights, apps constitute for 89% of mobile media time while the other 11% is spent on websites. As access to information is easier and quicker on smartphones, customers are all about interacting and making purchases using this medium. But one bad experience is all it takes for them to look for alternatives, but most importantly, lower a brand’s reputation.

Therefore, enterprises, over the last 5 years have taken a step towards being mobile friendly, so much so that some enterprises are choosing to have only a mobile strategy and focus only on that one medium.

Trend #8: Speech-enabled voice recognition

There will be a greater impact on voice recognition in 2018. Technological improvements have led to an increase in the number of voice-controlled home assistants and personal assistants like Siri or the Amazon Echo. Subsequently, businesses are also using speech-enabled service to deliver superior CX. Using Natural Language Processing and Understanding, customers will be able to have full-fledged conversations with bots while allowing businesses expand their capability to answer customer service issues with each interaction.

Trend #9: Location-based mobile communication

Beacon technology is said to change how CX will be received. A mix of GPS and Bluetooth, the wireless beacon technology will enable your mobile devices to alert applications when you move to specified areas, for instance, to track customers in real-time and push timely personalized messages.

While this has already emerged in the retail sector, there is potential for it to spread to other industries too to drive engagement and create more targeted campaigns.

Trend #10: Emotional Detection

Emotion in conversation is an essential part of the relationship between human and machine and technologies such as emotion-engines will help analyze input. It will be able to detect the customer’s exact feeling and prompt an immediate response. For example, during a chatbot conversation, using voice signals, the engine will able to sense elevated voice pitches and transfer the call to an agent.

The year 2017 has been a great year for customer experience – with mobile and artificial intelligence being the frontrunners across industries. Only a thin line separates a good experience from the bad, and one interaction – big or small – is all it takes. But, with 2018 just a few days away, if you haven’t entered the game of experiences yet, it’s not too late. The environment and the prize is always changing.

• This article was originally published in ET tech

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/6-new-year-resolutions-not-to-make-in-2018/ Wed, 03 Jan 2018 11:37:46 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=613 It’s that time of the year for brands, again. They must go through the 2018 New Year resolutions they came up with, as they raised a root beer toast at the office Christmas party. Changes, big and small, that can go a long way to keep their customers connected, loyal and happy. Eager to deliver […]

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]]> It’s that time of the year for brands, again. They must go through the 2018 New Year resolutions they came up with, as they raised a root beer toast at the office Christmas party. Changes, big and small, that can go a long way to keep their customers connected, loyal and happy. Eager to deliver great customer experience throughout the year, they may have forgotten to ask the gazillion-dollar question.

What are the resolutions made by customers as far as the experience is concerned?

Well, it is often a doozy to figure these out. Service technology is evolving at the rate of knots, and customer expectations are catching up effortlessly. What brands can know for sure is that customers will not put up with an experience that is generic, outdated, reactive and supremely annoying.

So, here are six New Year Resolutions that your customer will definitely not make in the year 2018.

 

 

We are thrilled to repeat ourselves while switching channels.

Go ahead and ask us the same questions when we opt for a different channel to solve the same issue. No problems here. It’s all good.

Please take your time, we are not in a hurry whatsoever.

We have things to do, people to meet, and there’s also the issue of world peace that may need our undivided attention. But that’s okay. Matter of fact, put us on hold. Oh yeah!

We will not speak to robots.

Hire more humans to interact with us until somebody, in some corner of the planet, comes with some form of intelligence that is artificial. Maybe, you could call it Artificial Intelligence or something like it. Yeah, that sounds catchy.

Uhmm don’t call us. We will call you.

Even if you know for a fact that you will be able to make us happy with just one proactive phone call. One email. One text message. Who needs that? Hang in there. Wait for our call.

We don’t plan to use social media…EVER.

Don’t feel ever bad about not reaching out to us through our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube accounts. We are yet to get over the sheer excitement of writing to our pen pals in Timbuktu.

Digital? What’s that? Does it come with two sugars?

Don’t fall for the hype of digitalization even though it has been taking over the entire service ecosystem all over the globe. We can download some online reports to prove our case. Now, where’s Wikipedia at?

Remember, irrespective of what you do – the sun will set this evening and rise again tomorrow morning. The earth will continue rotating on its own axis. And the spoilers to Game Of Thrones will not stop. Hence, with each passing year – the only surety that you can have, as a future-ready brand, is that your customers expect a great experience. You must understand what they do not want before giving them what you think they do.

Have a year filled with fantastic experiences!

Don’t forget to check out our top ten predictions for CX trends in the year 2018.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/the-rise-of-robotic-workforce/ Tue, 02 Jan 2018 11:40:36 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=624 With robotic process automation (RPA), being quick to implement, business operations can be seamlessly integrated and scaled without having to face a downtime or rebuild systems. The bots involved can manage anything from cognitive assessment to execution, and data migration to complex analysis using artificial intelligence and analytics in order to gather meaning and context […]

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]]> With robotic process automation (RPA), being quick to implement, business operations can be seamlessly integrated and scaled without having to face a downtime or rebuild systems. The bots involved can manage anything from cognitive assessment to execution, and data migration to complex analysis using artificial intelligence and analytics in order to gather meaning and context from data.

There has always been giant leaps in innovation ever since the phone was invented. From talking to kin on the other side of the globe to wireless mobile phones, access to the internet on mobile devices, a lot has changed in what technology can deliver.

Over the last few years, with quick access to smartphones and wearable devices, it has been helping users and enterprises perform complex tasks all controlled by the push of a few buttons. And now, artificial intelligence is making a greater impact with its predictive platforms and virtual assistants.

Gartner predicts that 30% of all companies will use AI to augment at least one of their sales processes, by 2020. Likewise, enterprises, globally, are investing in emerging technology platforms to meet customer expectations and deliver a superior experience. While these processes seek to imitate human actions, they eliminate repetitive and time-consuming activities. This has led enterprises to reduce errors, efforts, and costs and boast of high ROI’s in a very short timeframe.

According to NICE, 30% of processes can be automated for higher efficiency gains. This sudden explosion of robots and machines at the workplace can be factored as the rise of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, as bots have become the front and center of any intricate activity.

With robotic process automation (RPA), being quick to implement, business operations can be seamlessly integrated and scaled without having to face a downtime or rebuild systems. The bots involved can manage anything from cognitive assessment to execution, and data migration to complex analysis using artificial intelligence and analytics in order to gather meaning and context from data.

Research conducted by KPMG reveals that RPA offers a 40 to 75 percent reduction in costs while processes can run non-stop 24X7.

Subsequently, there is a rising fear that jobs which involve interpersonal interaction and creativity are regarded to be much safer. Even though technology and automation are changing the landscape of employment across the globe, this environment actually proves to be an opportunity more than a risk. It allows employees to spend more time on gaining value-added skills, explore newer areas of development, and collaborate on projects while also focusing on tasks that require a greater deal of attention to detail.

But are enterprises ready to leave it all under the control of bots?

Robotic Workforce Supervision – the principal officer

Bots are becoming smaller, more efficient, and have the ability to learn through familiarity. Process automation bots are no different. Through a series of commands and algorithms, they can interpret applications and perform defined tasks that may include completing a customer transaction, triggering responses, or generating reports without direct control of man.

By 2020, Gartner forecasts that the RPA software market will grow by 41% year over year.

Therefore, businesses are beginning to bank on robotic workforce supervision to ensure processes are in place to eliminate errors that can otherwise be caused by human negligence. Using an intuitive dashboard, it raises alerts during automation breaches much in advance.

Experts also believe that technology will not be fully able to complete tasks at all times. When competing with the human mind, machines are still limited, in terms of flexibility and adaptability and are incapable of making decisions on its own. Therefore, workforce supervision guarantees automation breaches are identified early on and fixed to prevent downtimes or complications.

Trust – the underlying factor in workforce supervision

According to research conducted by Business Insider, by 2020, the ratio of electronic devices to humans will reach 4:1 i.e an average of four devices for every individual. Together they will form a part of the Internet of Things generation.

Establishing trust between man and machine prevents workforce automation from completely taking over. The reason – humans may prefer interacting with another person more than a robot. As access to automation reduces costs for the enterprise if you are in the customer’s shoes would you choose to get advice from a robot that limits the level of human touch and empathy to a minimum?

Moreover, it is impossible for robots to maintain themselves. Only humans can be trusted to navigate and make structured and ethical decisions in any environment on the job. They can also handle situations and fix snags on all machines, systems, and processes.

What does the future hold for workforce supervision?

RPA can be tagged as today’s modern age outsourcing. With automation technology evolving largely, the potential economic impact for it is said to be nearly $6.7 trillion by the year 2025

According to reports by IDC, by 2018 a third of robotic deployments will be smarter and efficient enough to collaborate with other robots and work safely with humans. Soon enough they will be able to improve their own performance and take control of more elaborate decision-making using a combination of RPA and additional programming. After all, it will only be a matter of time before bots exceed the intellectual capacity of humans.

However, in the whirlwind of enterprises employing bots, the question arises – whether the current technological revolution is making humans lose out on the race between man and machine? Or is it just a myth?

• This article was originally published in BW CIO world

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/six-reasons-why-cloud/ Tue, 26 Dec 2017 09:45:08 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=631 It is the age of the Probots, Knowbots, and Chatbots. Automation and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) are not new terminologies in today’s industry parlance. McKinsey & Company analysts, predict that automation technologies will have an economic impact between $5.2 trillion and $ 6.7 trillion by 2025. RPA replicates a number of human activities and covers […]

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]]> It is the age of the Probots, Knowbots, and Chatbots. Automation and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) are not new terminologies in today’s industry parlance. McKinsey & Company analysts, predict that automation technologies will have an economic impact between $5.2 trillion and $ 6.7 trillion by 2025.

RPA replicates a number of human activities and covers a broad portfolio of point solutions. RPA products use static rules, objects, and scripting to tackle manual or semi-automated activities that are part of virtually every job. It is a viable option for organizations that want to replace or assist manual workers. By shifting repetitive, lower-end functions from people to software, organizations profoundly change the way they conduct business. It reduces manual intervention in repetitive, routine tasks within a process flow and automates it so it is accurate and predictable moving forward and also frees up human intervention in tasks like analyzing and interpreting data. RPA is simpler and involves mainly physical tasks that don’t need knowledge, insight or understanding. Potential benefits of RPA include increased revenues, improved customer satisfaction rates, reduced costs and a decrease in errors and rework.

However, there is a fair amount of uncertainty surrounding RPA. This is because business processes keep changing by the hour. Today, processes rely on solutions that are delivered in a SaaS, PaaS or IaaS model, which are known to change more often. Applications also change at a faster rate than before and organizations have less and less control over the timings of such changes. With very little control over application changes and with the fact that the frequency of such changes will increase over time, does it make sense to use RPA?

On the contrary, one need not harbour such fears because RPA can deliver an even greater advantage for applications that change more frequently. One, because RPA is design-driven and has embedded principles for solution architecture and second, because proper implementation methods allow automation of application, testing and business process adherence. However, a more viable solution would be to move to the cloud. Instead of a company concentrating on infrastructure, platforms, software and business processes, they can obtain the services of a cloud service provider to take care of all this for a fee. Gartner says public cloud platforms, business services, and applications will grow at a 22% CAGR between 2015 and 2020.

 

 

The reason why cloud is a viable option is because:

• It offers a quick and convenient solution as it has a pre-built network segment and when one starts to use it, the robots are immediately ready to function
• It allows to access data from anywhere, and get real-time insights into the various aspects of the business. The entire process flow can be seamlessly integrated with little or no manual intervention
• It offers flexibility when needed and it is not necessary to test the service beforehand, it can be used straight away
• It provides scalability and replicability and it also decreases operational costs
• It provides consistent quality, maintainability, and efficient change management. The same components can be used in several different processes.
• It is cost effective as most tasks are either tactical or operative and not strategic

RPA is coming of age and becoming a mainstream investment focus across industries. And cloud technology could be the tipping point where single-purpose robotic processes will be replaced by devices that can think, act and work alongside humans. Whilst still in its nascent stage, cloud-based robotic process automation may very well be the future of an agile experience.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/smart-virtual-personal-assistants-can-incubate-human-empathy-2/ Tue, 12 Dec 2017 09:33:36 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=641 It has been over a decade since mobile phones moved from being simple voice and SMS devices that allowed us to always stay connected. Now, they have become smarter, bolder and more self-sufficient. According to comScore, mobiles comprise 69 percent of digital media time spent. As a highly personalized medium, mobile phones have become a […]

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]]> It has been over a decade since mobile phones moved from being simple voice and SMS devices that allowed us to always stay connected. Now, they have become smarter, bolder and more self-sufficient.

According to comScore, mobiles comprise 69 percent of digital media time spent. As a highly personalized medium, mobile phones have become a critical touch point that customers carry and often engage with.

Enterprises are using this advantage and are largely investing in customer service technology to reach out to them in their platform of choice, and meet customer expectations.

 

 

Whether proactive or omnichannel, poor CX is a definitive revenue and loyalty buster for the enterprise. In many cases, it is caused by the reduction in service quality that may be attributed to lack of an efficient self-service ecosystem or burgeoning gaps in understanding customer behaviour. This is one of the major reasons why enterprises are adopting Artificial Intelligence-powered technologies such as smart Virtual Assistants to fulfil the rising expectations of customers

Mobile technology giants like Apple, Google, and Windows have been making it happen, with their Virtual Personal Assistants (VPA) that have been steadily strengthening the human-machine relationship.

Gartner predicts by the year 2020, 20 percent of smartphone interactions will be through a Virtual Personal Assistant. The shift away from mobile applications to speech recognition and natural language processing capabilities is a way of making the interaction real and direct. While they equip themselves with the knowledge of the customer, they also learn to recognize and imbibe behavioural and transactional patterns.

Over time will VPAs ever be ready to recognize tone and sentiment? Are customers really waiting for this digital disruption? Is empathy in Virtual Assistant subjective?

Virtual Personal Assistants (VPA) have been programmed to perform repetitive and defined tasks. They are not limited to sending emails or texts, creating reminders for meetings or looking for information on the internet. These interactive conversations are often monotonal, cold and robotic-like.

During an interaction with a customer through a live agent, there is always a balance of conversation and personalization backed by sentiments and emotions. With the bond between man and machine getting stronger, humans are indebted to the devices they use on a daily basis. As they continue to personify and establish a trust with the technology, they expect to receive the same or equal capacity of emotional engagement through the association.

This stage of emotional connectivity has reached an extent where a human’s comfort level with virtual personal assistants has overpowered that with other mankind. So, wouldn’t it be a smarter option for VPAs to bring in empathy and emotions into the interaction mix?

While designing an algorithm that helps VPAs to feel empathetic is only one half of the battle won, it is also about understanding that the tone of responses varies with different people, analyzing data, interacting with the user on a social angle and making on the spot decisions to personalize the interaction.

How does your VPA know what you’re feeling?

Human beings have a lot of emotional tones with more being discovered each day. Customer expectations have risen to the extent that they require a percentage of emotional involvement in each conversation they have. According to a paper published by Cornell University, 61 percent of humans who tested the machine favoured the emotional versions as compared to a neutral chatbot.

Empathy is all about understanding people’s individual characters and how they feel. It is also learned through personal growth and experiences from instances. The best way to do it is to reimagine speech recognition keeping each individual in mind and not the technology.

It should be able to recognize and understand personalities, moods and tonal pronunciations of words in various dialects of languages based on situations. Moreover, enterprises need to design unique systems that help VPAs pick up subtle changes in the user’s mood throughout the conversation.

Hence, a neutral VPA schedules your day, but an empathetic assistant reschedules your activities if you are caught up.

Empathy – Making the connection deeper and real

To crack the code of emotional intelligence, human touch is crucial. It is an essential part of the relationship between human and machine.

Artificial intelligence is shaping how customers and enterprises use technology and Virtual Personal Assistants are proof of it. Though they try to understand each user’s intelligence based on every interaction, it is important for developers to comprehend that human interactions are entirely constructed on emotional processes more than cognitive abilities. This is where empathy from machines through clever and funny interactions makes a difference and establishes a deeper connection that is relatable.

Enterprises are mixing sensory perceptions, speech analytics and video-based analysis of facial expressions to reach the perfect balance of empathy. But how do you ensure that the empathetic AI is more real than artificial? Research and trial and error on human and AI interactions play a huge advantage in reading human emotions.

From an enterprise perspective, it is necessary to be wary of not going too extreme on the element of humanness in Virtual Personal Assistants. Whereas from a customer perspective, the level of emotional alignment and intelligence that users are drawn to, varies. Therefore, while creating and testing your Virtual Personal Assistant ask yourself this question, will an empathetic VPAs further strengthen the relationship between human and machine?

The author is the Global CEO of Servion and its group companies.

• This article was originally published in the Tech2 Firstpost

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/contact-center-analytics/ Tue, 28 Nov 2017 11:47:00 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=712 Driven by ruthless competition, brutal cost pressures and soaring customer needs, the role of the contact center has been constantly evolving over the last few years. Progressive enterprises are seeing contact center analytics as a strategic and experience-based driver of business growth than rather an enabler of customer service. CEOs are relying on contact centers […]

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]]> Driven by ruthless competition, brutal cost pressures and soaring customer needs, the role of the contact center has been constantly evolving over the last few years. Progressive enterprises are seeing contact center analytics as a strategic and experience-based driver of business growth than rather an enabler of customer service.

CEOs are relying on contact centers to keep a finger on the pulse of customers; they expect agents to broaden their horizon, from merely reacting to service grievances to proactively driving customer engagement and brand experience. With contact centers donning the hat of a data nerve center, it seems only natural that CEOs have such expectations.

 
“The market for contact center analytics is expected to grow from $709.5 M in 2017 to $1,483.6 M by 2022, at a CAGR of 15.9%”
MarketsandMarkets
 

Yet, the reality is that contact centers are plagued by information overload and disparate data silos. On one end, they face customers who have a zero tolerance towards mediocre or inconsistent experience. On the other – their CEOs want nothing short of an outstanding experience to be delivered. Contact centers end up being awkwardly ‘stuck in the middle’. However, with technologies making serious strides in mining, segregating and delivering large amounts of data, they now have the firepower to win over both sides.

The need for deep-dive contact center analytics and customer care analytics have become more critical than before; one that captures actionable insights from the wealth of data that customers leave behind during their everyday interactions.

Let us take a quick look at how contact center can leverage analytics to truly live up to the expectations of their leadership teams, as well as their end customers.

 

 

Understanding contact center analytics:

Simply put, contact center analytics looks to leverage ‘all customer data’ to drive enterprise performance and informed decision-making. It can help in identifying trends, reducing churn, gaining cross-channel intelligence, and giving managers the right insights to drive business growth while ensuring operational efficiency.

So, what are the outcomes that contact center analytics can drive? What are the customer care analytics use cases? Let us weigh it from three perspectives – the contact center, the customer and the enterprise.

Benefits from analytics for the contact center

• Multi-channel integration: Seamless bi-directional integrations with core enterprise applications such as CRM, ERP, and other data warehouses.
• Customer journey insights: Leverage a 360-degree view of customers’ journeys across all channels and transactions to provide a unified omni-channel customer experience.
• Empowered agents: Understand customer preferences, harness journey insights, receive alerts when incidents happen, and ensure customer receive a superior experience.
• Reduced manual contact center reporting: Bid goodbye to manually extraction and consolidation of data, reduce manual effort for reporting by 60%, and dynamically generate ad-hoc reports when required.
• Gain operational efficiency: Keep an eye on critical contact center metrics and KPIs. Measure, monitor and manage everything that matters.
 

 

Benefits from analytics for the enterprise

• Get 360 -degree view of the contact center: Find answers to the what, why and how questions about the day-to-day contact center operations.
• Identify trends and patterns: Discover customer trends and anomalies in patterns and drill into the data for deeper detail while preserving the context.
• Faster and data-driven decision making: Integrate self- contained siloes through unified dashboard, use multi-channel customer intelligence integrated with quality monitoring systems, workforce management solutions and enterprise applications.
• Boost revenues with cross-sell and up-sell: Drive additional revenues by identifying contextual cross-sell, and upsell opportunities – using Next Best Actions.
• Enhance customer relationship value: Reduce customer churn, improve customer engagement and create targeted campaigns based on customer lifetime value.
• Offer a better customer experience: Improve the overall customer experience by offering the right support, to the right customer, in the right channel, at the right time.
 

 

Benefits from analytics for the customer

• Get personalized service: Get a consistent, seamless, and hyper-personalized omni-channel experience across multiple channels and touchpoints.
• Gain faster resolutions: Find faster resolutions to complex issues without having to suffer long holding time, painful transfers and get First Contact Resolutions.
• Reduced transaction time: Gain real-time responses to current issues based on journey insights.
• Reduced customer effort: Use the minimum effort necessary to achieve the best possible outcome.
• Gain proactive service: Get help before you ask for it; discover solutions to problems even before they arise.
 

 

Critical components of the contact center analytics stack:

There is no perfect blueprint for implementing contact center analytics. Building the components of this stack is similar to the requirements of any conventional data environment. But, it is important for enterprises to take an outside-in approach – considering their customers’ journeys across multiple touchpoints – rather than looking at it as an IT investment. Each of the components needs to closely align with the unique challenges and business needs, treating it as a multiyear technology and process initiative. Some of the most common elements include:

a) Sentiment analytics: It has always been important for enterprises to understand their customers’ emotions. In today’s digital world, they should have the ability to interpret and act on it too. Understanding, anticipating and leveraging customer emotions with sentiment analysis – especially based on their social media posts can help them to respond better.

b) Customer effort analytics: Analyzing customer effort helps in increasing customer loyalty, customer retention and reduced cost of service. Many analytics platforms today allow users to slice and dice customer effort scores across regions, products and categories; enabling them to identify products or categories that cause a spike in the effort.

c) Customer journey analytics: Deciphering a customer’s journey is key to empowering agents to deliver flawless customer experience and achieve operational efficiency. Journey insights allow enterprises to analyze step-by-step the interactions across branches, voice, email, chat, web, social or any other touchpoint overtime to complete a task.

d) Contact center predictive analytics: Powered by statistical and machine learning models, predictive analytics helps enterprises to foresee what is best for the customer. Based on transactional, historic and demographic data, it enables enterprises to offer the right Next Best Actions. Agents too can understand preferences, identify cross-sell, and upsell opportunities while providing event-based help to customers.

e) Contact center next best action analytics: Next Best Action engines extend alternative actions to a customer during an interaction. Enterprises, looking to improve the effectiveness of these engines, need a dashboard to analyze the effectiveness of business rules. That is exactly what an effective contact center analytics software delivers. Users can perform analysis across customer segments, products and channels and drive continuous improvement by measuring rule effectiveness.

f) Contact center performance analytics: Contact center metrics analytics and reporting in one of the key expectations from any operation manager. They need to constantly keep an eye on critical contact center metrics and KPIs to measure operational performance. Contact center performance analytics platforms integrate data from multiple customer channels and enterprise systems – providing contact centers managers, operations, technology and business a 360-degree view of the contact center.

 

How to become awesome at Contact Center Analytics? | Servion Watch Video
 

Choosing the right contact center analytics software:

Irrespective of what a vendor tells you or how easy the deployment may appear to be, the fact remains that any enterprise’s contact center analytics platform will be a combination of multiple solutions, products or platforms. Currently, there is no single contact center analytics platform that is best-fit and budget-friendly for all business use cases; that can be implemented without any additional training or skills.

To simplify your selection process, here are a few must-have features, functions and factors to consider:

1. Starts with the customer in mind

Like most analytics investments, the end-game must be factored in, right from the start. Imagine spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to procure a solution and clocking immeasurable hours in implementing it – only to realize that it does not improve the overall customer experience. Simply put, it should make it easier to keep customers happy. Everything else can then be worked backward from thereon.

Question to ask: How does it make my customers life easier?

2. Go multi-channel or go home

Any contact center analytics product or a contact center analytics software worth its salt will first look to integrate contact centers with core enterprise applications and data warehouses to gain holistic insights. It should integrate multiple sources of channel data such as IVR, ACD, email, chat, and social to help enterprises track, monitor and analyze critical contact center KPIs. It should also enable omni-channel customer experience, which is connected, seamless and unified.

Question to ask: Does it allow multi-channel and cross-channel analytics natively?

3. Offers you the ability to interact with data

An ideal contact center analytics software should allow DIY reporting and advanced UX capabilities to empower agents to create ad hoc reports, use historical data on the fly, change filters – all with an advanced and simple-to-use GUI. It should also offer prebuilt contact center data analysis templates. This will lead to a greater flexibility and lesser dependency on report developers. Agents should also be able to choose from an array of graphical formats to display results, see trends and anomalies, and drill into the data for deeper detail while preserving the context.

Question to ask: Does it make analytics so simple that even non-technical business leaders can use it with no IT-dependencies?

4. A single dashboard for faster decision making

One of the biggest challenges in the contact center is that lack of an integrated view of all critical contact center KPIs. Therefore, the right solution should integrate self- contained siloes through a unified dashboard. Information from different customer channels should be integrated with quality monitoring systems, workforce management solutions and enterprise applications to better understand what is happening in the contact center – thereby enabling faster and more effective decision-making.

Question to ask: Does it offer a single dashboard to answer the why, what and how questions about the contact center and the customer’s journey across all channels?

5. Reduces manual reporting at least by 60%

Contact center operations managers often find themselves manually extracting data from multiple datasheets and consolidating reports. An ideal solution must take contact center reporting and analytics to a whole new level. It should result in cutting down manual reporting efforts at least by an estimated 60% if not 100%. It should also not require additional training – enabling current resources to generate sophisticated reports – faster, smarter and easier.

Question to ask: Does it put an end to wasting hours in manual reporting and consolidation?

6.Allows you to dream big

Contact centers are on the frontline of an increasingly-complex customer experience battlefield. Therefore, an ideal contact center analytics software must be a meeting point of cutting-edge technological innovation and meeting customer/stakeholder expectations. It should allow seamless integration with emerging Artificial Intelligence technologies such as Chatbots, Virtual Assistants, Virtual Reality, and Augmented Reality.

Question to ask: Does it future-proof your contact center/ customer experience investment?

According to a MarketsandMarkets research report, there are about 25 leading vendors in the contact center analytics market. These vendors have been placed into 4 categories based on their performance as visionary leaders, innovators, emerging companies, or dynamic differentiators.

Conclusion:

Enterprises must recognize the need to deliver data-driven, seamless omni-channel experience to customers more than ever before. So, before you the rush to implement new technologies and add new channels, ensure that your investments do not result in just a creation of multiple technology layers that creates a complex contact center. Instead, make all the right moves so that your contact center analytics keep your customers coming back.

The post What Is Contact Center Analytics And Why Should It Matter To You appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> https://servion.com/blog/automation-analytics-real-fuel-driving-superior-cx/ Tue, 07 Nov 2017 09:20:56 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=759 Ever since brands have existed to provide products and services to customers, there has been a constant quest to raise the bar on Customer Experience (CX). Achieving superior CX at a lower cost is the single most impactful lever to capture market share, enhance revenue and profitability of any enterprise. As customer expectations continue to […]

The post Automating And Analytics – The Real Fuel For Driving Superior CX appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> Ever since brands have existed to provide products and services to customers, there has been a constant quest to raise the bar on Customer Experience (CX). Achieving superior CX at a lower cost is the single most impactful lever to capture market share, enhance revenue and profitability of any enterprise.

As customer expectations continue to evolve, information-led innovation such as Process Automation, Interaction Analytics and Customer Journey Analytics have taken quantum leaps to ensure a future-proofed service ecosystem. Clearly, the fast-paced growth of the information age and its capacity to deliver superior CX has been established. Leveraging technology to improve customer engagement and customer lifetime value has become a norm rather than an overcautious chess move.

Automating excellence in the future

With the market share for Process Automation expected to be $4.98 billion globally by 2020 (Global Industry Analysis & Forecast) and 50% of top companies planning to or are actively pursuing AI-driven automation pilots (Everest Group), the future of customer experience certainly seems to be automated by smart robots.

• Single screen access to disparate systems and applications
• Empowered smart agents with higher quality and risk mitigation
• Error free processing and information accuracy
• Customizable audit options with relevant insights for continuous process optimisation
 

 

The gift of analytics keeps on giving

Many of the leading brands across domains such as Banking and Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI), Telecom and Retail are turning to automation and analytics products to solve real business problems.

A few years ago, major investments in the realm of operational and omnichannel analytics were still in the experimental stage. Evidence was just starting to build. However, as the market stands today – the proof is loud and clear. And it comes from a wide range of industries with a variety of established business outcomes.

The BFSI industry, in particular, has seen tremendous improvement in its overall CX strategies Large players have seen sustainable outcomes, through harnessing the power of deep-dive analytics. It gives enterprises the ability to understand customer actions and emotions across every banking touch-point. They can now ensure a more satisfying experience for customers by:

• Preventing churn
• Creating upsell opportunities
• Improving agent performance
• Resulting in better operational compliance
 

 

The journey has only just begun

Banks are also relying on Journey Analytics to provide 360-degree customer engagement. There are several paths that a single customer can embark upon while moving between different channels over a period of time. It is therefore crucial to decipher which paths add momentum to enterprise growth and customer loyalty. Some of its benefits include:

• Discovering reasons for low CSAT & NPS; driving them up
• Understanding single and multi-channel behavior
• Increasing channel retention
• Reducing customer service cost

Successful adoption of these evolving technologies will significantly enhance performance. Automation has the potential to raise throughput, improve predictions, accuracy, outcomes, and optimization. Analytics, on the other hand, makes decision making easy with actionable insights and engagements with the customers. Today analytics and automation are generating real value. For example:

• A financial institution achieved 100% FTE reduction with 0% error rate for its credit waiver process
• A telco enhanced its market presence as they were the first enterprise in their local region to implement a cognitive AI agent
• An insurance company increased its retention rate by 35% by reducing customer effort score leveraging customer journey analytics
• A mortgage company leveraged process automation and reduced the onboarding time from 14 days to 2 days

The future of CX technology is already there. It just needs the strategic vision and the tactical execution capabilities to achieve the aspiration of raising the bar for superior CX.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/new-kind-currency-emotion-economy-2/ Thu, 02 Nov 2017 12:13:29 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=819 It’s always been important for businesses to understand their customers. More recently, this has been done by collecting data on past actions, and analysing that data to predict what each customer’s next action might be. However, this is just half of the puzzle when trying to understand what a customer will do. Today, we’ve come […]

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]]> It’s always been important for businesses to understand their customers. More recently, this has been done by collecting data on past actions, and analysing that data to predict what each customer’s next action might be.

However, this is just half of the puzzle when trying to understand what a customer will do. Today, we’ve come further than many thought possible for machines, as technology is being used to read, analyse and even replicate that missing piece – our emotions.

For organisations, it’s no longer just about understanding what we do, but understanding what we feel; this is the ‘emotion economy’, and recent advances in technology have already put us on the path towards it. Futurist Richard Yonck first coined the term, describing the emotion economy as an ecosystem of emotionally intelligent devices and software iterations that will completely change the way we interact with machines.

Understanding how this ecosystem works, and learning how to draw value from it, will become vital to the success of any organisation that is looking to engage with customers and stay at the front of the pack amongst competitors.

EMOTION CAUSING A COMMOTION

The reason that understanding emotion is attractive to businesses is because of the potential revenue streams it offers. Research firm markets and markets claim that the affective computing market, made up of technology that is designed to recognise, understand and simulate human emotion, is set to rise to $59 billion by 2021.

Many large tech firms have seen the potential of harnessing our emotions, and our feelings are already being analysed by a number of organisations, both large and small. Facebook began to lay the groundwork for a future in emotion with its ‘reactions’ functionality. This allows users to express themselves more flexibly on the platform, but more importantly for Facebook, it gives the company valuable data on its users’ reactions.

“Many large tech firms have seen the potential of harnessing our emotions, and our feelings are already being analysed by a number of organisations”

Facebook can now give organisations advertising through the site a much richer picture of how consumers feel. This data can be used to personalise the service, showing users more of what they love, and improving each individual’s browsing experience.

Some organisations have already gone further than tracking emotions. Consequential Robotics has designed the MiRo robot as a programmable companion for the elderly, which is capable of letting relatives and carers know how its owner has been feeling in between visits. In another example, BeyondVerbal, an AI-driven voice analytics firm, claims to be able to identify human emotions with 80 percent accuracy.

CAN I BORROW A FEELING?

The reason for early adoption into the affective computing market is simple – businesses recognise the power emotions can have when it comes to fostering brand loyalty. Creating real emotional bonds will motivate customers to return to the same organisation, and give those capable of engaging with their customers a significant competitive edge.



As more companies begin to invest in affective computing, businesses will be clamouring to claim a stake in the emotion economy, and emotion will become a key component for all businesses that interact with customers and users.

This shift in focus towards building emotional bonds between a brand and its customers will change the way businesses interact with us on a fundamental level. Soon, implementing technologies that are capable of detecting and analysing emotion will not just be a project for tech firms, but an essential for any organisation, as companies compete for the affection of customers.

H0W C4N I H3LP Y0U?

As businesses invest in the emotion economy, customer engagement is only going to improve the everyday experience for consumers – as technology will learn to anticipate our needs better, and engage with us in a more natural way.

One of the key differentiators between man and machine has always been that we can understand and interpret emotion, but this will not remain in the human domain. While it might seem alien now to be talking about emotionally engaging with a machine, the technology that we interact with in just a few years will be a far cry from the majority of modern chatbots.

“Smarter, emotive machines will quickly surpass modern automated technology in customer service; eliminating the flawed, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that’, functionality of many virtual assistants”

These smarter, emotive machines will quickly surpass modern automated technology in customer service; eliminating the flawed, “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that”, functionality of many virtual assistants present today. Machines will be able to analyse tone, facial expressions and language to determine how best to handle a certain person or interaction – an algorithm the human brain has developed over millions of years in order to survive and avoid danger.

DATA GETS EMOTIONAL

The scope for emotive interactions is enormous. From an AI recognising an upset customer over the phone to advanced robotic assistants such as Pepper. Pepper can recognise human emotions by analysing changes in tone of voice, facial expressions, body language and the type of words used, and can be programmed to respond accordingly.

Pepper has already been rolled out in 100 branches of Mizuho Bank in Japan, where it handles customer service queries. In the not-so-distant future, virtual and robotic assistants will be the norm, catering each interaction to the customer, and building relationships with humans that were previously the stuff of science fiction.



As data analysis and AI evolve beyond tracking the ‘who, what, when and where’, affective computing will continue to pick up steam. Consumers will soon be dealing with an influx of intelligent, emotive assistants that will transform the way we interact with technology. This age of emotion is set to transform everything we know about the human/machine relationship.

For organisations, the race is on to discover the best way to utilise advances in affective computing. Those who can carve out a niche will reap the benefits, as they drastically improve the customer experience, building stronger relationships with customers than ever before. However, businesses that don’t invest in the emotion economy will be left scrambling to catch up, as customers decide with their hearts, not their minds.

• This article was originally published in Raconteur

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/fueling-futuristic-customer-engagement-hub/ Tue, 24 Oct 2017 11:54:22 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=828 As a forward-thinking organization, you must be going through a lot of disruption in the way you deliver customer experience. With the influx of new technologies, service ecosystems are taking quantum leaps. And customer expectations have skyrocketed to the moon. It’s all happening so fast that it is no easy feat to ensure proactive, contextual […]

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]]> As a forward-thinking organization, you must be going through a lot of disruption in the way you deliver customer experience. With the influx of new technologies, service ecosystems are taking quantum leaps. And customer expectations have skyrocketed to the moon.

It’s all happening so fast that it is no easy feat to ensure proactive, contextual and unified customer engagement.

Some say that Customer Engagement Hubs are the mothership of customer experience how it can be the all-encompassing answer for CX practitioners who struggle with complex issues while driving seamless omni-channel conversations.

But what’s the hype about CEH? Is it a gamechanger in service differentiation? More importantly, how do you build and manage one?

Take a look at the infographic to know what it takes.



You can also download the white paper by Mike McClelland, Vice President – Servion Americas and a contact center stalwart. He talks about how and why you need a mission-ready CEH to help enterprises stay connected.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/hub-things-stay-connected-omnichannel-world/ Thu, 19 Oct 2017 12:23:41 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=838 Looking back, you realize that an avalanche of technology change has just hit you in the face. Our lives are never going to be the same, neither tomorrow nor the day after. We are living in a truly transformative age. An age where colossal technology developments are taking place every moment. Look around and you […]

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]]> Looking back, you realize that an avalanche of technology change has just hit you in the face. Our lives are never going to be the same, neither tomorrow nor the day after. We are living in a truly transformative age. An age where colossal technology developments are taking place every moment. Look around and you will realize that you are in the midst of a hyper-accelerated transformation phase, in a world of instantaneous information and plethora of data. Organizations too have started moving from a single channel to multi-channel to omnichannel approach to ensure the customer has a seamless experience. Yet despite the countless technological advancements, we have drifted further apart. We are no longer truly connected in a connected world. We are siloed in our communication.

Enterprises too have fallen into the trap. Individual departments function as isolated functional groups lending an entirely new meaning to the phrase ‘The right-hand does not know what the left-hand does’. However, enterprises that wish to remain competitive need to up their customer experience. They need re-examine their existing applications, business processes, and technologies. They need to bridge organizational gaps and orchestrate multiple systems to ensure a consistent customer experience.

To stay truly connected, they need to build effective Customer Engagement Hubs. Only a CEH will allow a personalized, contextual customer engagement across all the interaction channels.

In this whitepaper, Mike McClelland, Vice President – Americas, talks about some of the common expectations today’s customers have and how Servion’s five unique CX platforms help enterprises stay connected.

• To know more, download the whitepaper

  Here

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/mothership-calling-customer-engagement-hubs-stay/ Tue, 10 Oct 2017 10:09:31 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=844 In an extremely competitive market place, customer experience has become a critical differentiator. However, many enterprises engage their customers via isolated and disconnected silos or they view it as iterations of existing business processes, with some incremental new function or automation. Since these silos are disconnected, they create lack of synergy and coordination leading to […]

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]]> In an extremely competitive market place, customer experience has become a critical differentiator. However, many enterprises engage their customers via isolated and disconnected silos or they view it as iterations of existing business processes, with some incremental new function or automation. Since these silos are disconnected, they create lack of synergy and coordination leading to negative customer sentiment.

The goal of any enterprise must be to provide a unified customer experience that allows customers to execute their journeys seamlessly across the enterprise.

The customer journey should be a seamless experience without boundaries and facilitated by dynamic processes. Only a strategic approach such as building a living, breathing, evolving Customer Engagement Hub (CEH) can integrate user experience, data and processes. CEH is essentially an architectural model that you can’t buy off the shelf. Each organization is unique and each customer is unique.

 

 

Gartner estimates that by 2018, 60% of large organizations will design a CEH, yet only 20% will select the correct technologies to make it work.

But knowing the why is just half the battle. Designing, implementing and managing an effective Customer Engagement Hub requires in-depth know-how. In our latest whitepaper, Mike McClelland (Vice President – Americas), talks about why Customer Engagement Hubs are the need of the hour and how enterprises can run them.

• Download the whitepaper

  Here

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/cc-technology-transitioning-prevent-wipeout/ Thu, 28 Sep 2017 10:15:19 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=858 Customers always want to be a part of the latest trends, rather than being called a paddlepuss. The same goes with enterprises too when they need to upgrade technology in order to service their customers better and stay ahead of competition. Throughout the four waves blog series, we have been talking about how technology in the […]

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]]> Customers always want to be a part of the latest trends, rather than being called a paddlepuss. The same goes with enterprises too when they need to upgrade technology in order to service their customers better and stay ahead of competition.

Throughout the four waves blog series, we have been talking about how technology in the contact center (CC) industry has evolved from a completely owned model to a purely outsourced one and back to model managed in-house. And now we know that a technology insourcing model is ideal for enterprises that are looking to control costs and enhance service quality in today’s omni-channel setup.

But, in a CC technology transition, there will be certain barriers that provoke organizations to wipeout. So here are the top four challenges that enterprises face when moving from an outsourced to an insourced CC model:

Building specialized IT skills

Organizations that have outsourced CC technology to specialists for a long duration often lack the required capabilities to support the new CC technologies. This urges them to train their existing agents with new skills or hire highly skilled agents who can handle the current expectations of customers and have a deep knowledge of the business support systems including data and voice network capabilities.

 

 

Establishing a new organizational structure

With an insourcing model, enterprises are forced to create a new organizational structure keeping in mind the skilled employees; ones that can take ownership of the in-house environment. To facilitate this, workforce management, deployment of agent monitoring capabilities and adequate training activities are organized.

Tackling increased costs

Investments in infrastructure are always proportioned to a CC technology transition. This doesn’t happen just in terms of technology, but people too. The right fit of people with the right technology investment (both hardware and software) will reduce call times and help deliver superior customer experience. The costs incurred by the enterprise will stabilize after the initial years.

Operational risks faced during transition

A technology transition necessitates a new operating model. From strategizing to implementation, documenting the scope of operations is critical. And in this model, there may be new risks that can cause a delay or stall the process. Therefore, it is better if enterprises leverage the capabilities of a technology services provider to ensure a smooth transition.

So, are you ready to steer towards a successful CC transition? Manu, our veteran CX expert, takes you through the process of bringing it in-house and the need for a niche service provider to help you through the transition.

• Download the white paper

  Here

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/5-ways-dive-contact-center-technology-insourcing/ Thu, 21 Sep 2017 10:17:44 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=869 We’ve all heard the phrase ‘practice makes perfect’ and this holds true when you attempt to learn a new skill, like riding a bike, surfing or even deep sea diving. While this applies to many industries, the contact center industry, over the years, has seen critical functions and processes making its way back into the […]

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]]> We’ve all heard the phrase ‘practice makes perfect’ and this holds true when you attempt to learn a new skill, like riding a bike, surfing or even deep sea diving. While this applies to many industries, the contact center industry, over the years, has seen critical functions and processes making its way back into the hand-holding of enterprises.

And gradually enterprises have begun training their employees to develop their skills, in order to of dive into CC technology and manage it in-house. This holds true in most outsourcing model failures that delivered poor customer experience and were highly priced.

To move away from additional costs of outsourcing, organizations are insourcing important elements of Contact Center (CC) technology, thereby allowing them to have more control. So here are five ways to dive into CC technology insourcing:

 

 

High customer expectations

By outsourcing technology functions to specialists, it was evident that service quality was taking a huge hit. It may be attributed to the agents’ insufficient knowledge on the enterprises’ business. Now, with insourcing and a partnership with the right CC specialist, providing a consistent and proactive customer experience across every touch point has never been easier.

Increased control on IT functions

In an outsourcing model, a major issue that enterprises faced included loss of control. As a result, they undergo quality assurance monitoring issues, delayed deployment in policies and development of code for critical systems. Whereas in an insourcing model, organizations are given the liberty to choose a specialist they are comfortable with while having the advantage of being able to drive regulatory standards.

Need to integrate assets and resources

Having a unified view of the organization is key to delivering seamless customer experience. Using this along with CC technology ensures the integration of assets and resources increases optimal utilization of assets and reduces costs. It also provides greater insights to customer journey activities that can help improve CX.

 

 

Cost reduction

Outsourcing models often saw enterprises spending more than what is accounted for in the business budgets. This is the outcome of added control mechanisms driven by poor quality standards. Though insourcing may ultimately lead to a reduction in costs, investing in newer technologies is often foreseen as expensive.

Need for scalable new technologies

Managing the technology capabilities in-house has proved to bring better results in terms of centralized management and scalability of resources. There is also a reduction in costs while easing the adoption of new technologies.

So, are you ready to make a splash with CC technology insourcing just like other enterprises? Manu, one of our veteran CX experts, takes you through the process of bringing it in-house and the need for a niche service provider to help you through the transition.

• Download the white paper

  Here

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/surfs-riding-four-waves-contact-center-technology/ Thu, 14 Sep 2017 09:58:11 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=880 A contact center’s (CC) path to providing seamless and proactive customer experience is beset with barriers, large and small. While it seems to be a single point A to point B interaction, there is more to it than just the goal and outcome. This journey can be compared to a surfer’s experience while riding the […]

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]]> A contact center’s (CC) path to providing seamless and proactive customer experience is beset with barriers, large and small. While it seems to be a single point A to point B interaction, there is more to it than just the goal and outcome. This journey can be compared to a surfer’s experience while riding the unpredictable waves in the ocean.

So, to perfect the technique, the surfer requires a combination of good training and equipment. Over the years, surfboards have become more symmetrical and durable; to ensure that mighty waves can be conquered.

Similarly, contact center technology too has gone through several stages of transformation. Its evolution can be categorized into four waves based on the pattern of ownership. Advanced technologies and changing customer demands have caused dramatic ripple effects. It has moved from being owned by the enterprise to being outsourced and finally, insourced.

First Wave

Enterprises too complete ownership of the CC technology. Right through the stages of customer interaction from pre-purchase to post-purchase, they managed all the aspects, including the deployment of the right technology and how many agents are required to handle each communication channel.


Zoom Image

Second Wave

The ownership was split between the enterprise and specialist vendors. While vendors were given the responsibility of customer interaction, reporting, and staffing, the design and analytics were managed by the former. This fragmented division, though it brought down the costs, it resulted in customer dissatisfaction due to poor management capabilities.

Third Wave

Enterprises had one objective in mind – to allow customers to have access to superior IVR technologies and improve customer completion rate. To reach this goal, possession of IVR and service ownership were outsourced to CC technology specialists while the larger volume of work including monitoring, reporting and staff remained outsourced

Fourth Wave

Given the power-centers that enterprises have now become, technology is moving back in-house, with the infrastructure being managed through a service model. They have the ownership to take control of the technology function with vendors managing the important aspects of customer interaction and reporting.

Curious to know how enterprises have been expertly surfing through these four big waves? Manu, one of our veteran CX experts, takes you through the evolution of contact center technology.

• Download the white paper

  Here

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/virtual-reality-next-major-frontier-modern-customer/ Tue, 12 Sep 2017 11:23:11 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=889 In today’s digitalized world, technology has become sine qua non. The modern human would be at a loss in a world without Google, Netflix or Amazon. Interactions between customers and enterprises continue to evolve along with the advancements in technology and infrastructure. The quintessential customer of today is moving away from brick-and-motor stores. And global […]

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]]> In today’s digitalized world, technology has become sine qua non. The modern human would be at a loss in a world without Google, Netflix or Amazon. Interactions between customers and enterprises continue to evolve along with the advancements in technology and infrastructure. The quintessential customer of today is moving away from brick-and-motor stores. And global enterprises, led by future thinking, are rapidly transitioning towards an environment in which they can easily and symbiotically discover, engage and retain customers. According to Gartner “Businesses will use VR technologies to enhance customer and employee digital experiences. Technology innovation leaders need to investigate, invest and plan to integrate AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality) to improve customer and employee interactions and business performance”

At the frontier of multi-channel interactions is Virtual Reality (VR). The pace of innovation in VR is on the rise, given that its application to empower enterprises to service customers is becoming clearer by the day. Devices such as head-mounted displays and wearables that provide purposeful and timely information are becoming accessible channels for brand interactions. The difference between the VR experience and other channels is that it offers a highly-immersive ecosystem without the dreaded fear of overselling. By integrating VR technology into service applications enterprises can bridge their physical and digital worlds to give customers a fully-rounded experience that they are very much in control of.

Some of the ways in which VR solutions can improve customer experience



3D Digital Showrooms, Displays and Tours

VR enable retail brands to deliver a one-of-a-kind experience to their customers. Considering the influx of artificial intelligence into the daily lives of the modern customer, other industries such as BFSI, Telecom, etc are not far behind. Past the past few years, Customer demands have become domain-agnostic. They want the same experience, no matter what they want. A digital showroom in 3D can be used to personalize (with or without headset) customer interactions and offer innovative mobile and in-store experiences.

Remote Control Instructions

Imagine being able to provide step-by-step instructions on your products and real-time service to customers With VR, you can guide customers to their window-shopping, purchasing or troubleshooting expectations by using visual diagrams that instruct them exactly what to do and how to do it in the least possible time.

Virtual Product Design

Virtual development platforms are an enterprise’s best bet for minimizing expenses while substantially improving efficiency. They can test drive their products / solutions / services in all different stages of development without incurring any extra costs. On a virtual stage – they can offer a valuable 360-degree perspective.

Virtual Support Agents

AI-driven virtual agents can present themselves as actual people via live streaming feeds, and help customers to sort out any issue they may be facing or to empower them with the right information to carry out self-service seamlessly.

Gamification

Virtual reality can be the perfect addition to gamification strategy for improving customer retention and fostering long-lasting loyalty Gamification applications help enterprises to create an entirely new perspective for product presentations and supply-side production values. Customers can have an interactive understanding on new releases or performance, at the click of a button, without leaving the comfort of their homes.



Get the truly digital advantage

In the coming years, Virtual Reality will become a core digital platform to initiate and handle customer interactions across domains. Some of its key differentiators include:

Emotional resonance:

VR technology has the potential to incubate greater emotional resonance to customers, through the sheer sensory impact of the experience and the capability to provide greater intimacy remotely.

Information accessibility:

It is a flexible platform that allows for much greater information accessibility. Providing information in a quick and simplistic format, VR supports multi-sensory learning including tactile kinesthetic interaction that can adapt the content to the customer’s preferred experience type.

Hypothetical experience:

VR technology can help enterprises to create a compelling Hypothetical Experience that lets customers to experience multiple scenarios in real time without having to prototype or making snap decisions based on one-dimensional representations.

Virtual Reality certainly has a huge business potential that will have an impact on the way customer experience is delivered. Enterprises that manage to create seamless, integrated, and immersive experiences, using breakthrough technologies, will be able to create lasting impressing among its modern customers.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/5-ways-customer-journey-analytics-disrupting-marketplace/ Tue, 05 Sep 2017 11:15:43 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=1205 Each time you visit a restaurant, what matters the most to you? Is it just about the food? Or the service? Perhaps, you are a stickler for the logistics behind the process of eating out. For instance, how long does it take you to pick a restaurant? From narrowing down a restaurant and factoring its […]

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]]> Each time you visit a restaurant, what matters the most to you? Is it just about the food? Or the service? Perhaps, you are a stickler for the logistics behind the process of eating out.

For instance, how long does it take you to pick a restaurant? From narrowing down a restaurant and factoring its cuisine preference to the location’s proximity and the estimated bill amount. A lot of these factors are often taken into consideration. Although, these seem like siloed interactions, when tied together using big data and analytics – it connects the dots to map your interaction journey with the restaurant.

What is Customer Journey Analytics?</h4

Gartner defines journey analytics as tracking and analyzing the way customers use combinations of channels to interact with an enterprise and covers all channels which interface directly with them. It combines all the events in the journey from the customer’s point of view.

Journey analytics is used to discover and understand individual customers through real-time data for offering personalized experience. The derived insights can also help you determine critical customer journey and identify opportunities to sharpen your business goals.

Journey analytics vs Journey mapping

The journey map is a visual representation of an individual customer’s step-by-step engagement with your enterprise on email, chat, branch, message, voice or any other touchpoint over time.

Customer journey analytics and journey mapping take very different approaches even though they share a common goal – customer satisfaction.

For instance, restaurants use approaches like the feedback form to track customer satisfaction. The foundation of measuring immediate experience, they get a definite opinion from every individual which can be compared alongside other forms to form a bigger picture.

While a journey map tracks an individual customer’s engagement with a brand, journey analytics is based on big data of individual interactions.

In comparison with the micro customer journey map, journey analytics is a macro journey. It empowers your enterprise to identify the most significant paths of a large group of customers from a wide variety of paths that they take across a multi-channel ecosystem.

Unlike journey maps that can be seen in real-time, journey analytics are time-based and allows changes in the journeys to be seen over time. This allows CX professionals to engage customers in the future based on behavior through the best possible channel, and in a personalized way.

 

 

5 ways Customer Journey Analytics is disrupting the marketplace

1) Pace of real-time insights

Enterprises are moving from a gradual and siloed approach to a more centralized and efficient system that combines all elements of the customer journey in one environment. To bring together a real-time context, previous journey and purchase information along with immediate insights in one single window, will increase experiences of pleasing customers faster.

2) Increasing competition

Reaching out to prospective customers through the channel of preference, at the right time, ensures higher conversions. With journey analytics, it becomes easy to unearth the high-impact journeys in a purchase. Information on product preferences, lifestyle patterns, and behavior can be used as a foundation for acquisition campaigns.

3) Personalized service

journey analytics helps enterprises like you identify cross-sell/upsell opportunities. By triggering timely communication, it can help increase the revenue per customer. It also helps to uncover the highest impact segments to grow revenue and identify places of strategic enhancements to reduce costs and boost sales.

4) Speedy interactions

Journey analytics is the most predictive form to gauge customer satisfaction. It determines specific blind spots in the journey that can improve overall experience

5) Integration of touchpoints

Using customer personas, channel preferences, and other factors, journey analytics can help predict behavior, understand preferences, and recognize which actions work best in any situation. This allows enterprises to build an effective content strategy to reduce churn by identifying and engaging with at-risk customers

Gartner research predicts that in the next three years, 60% of digital commerce analytics investments will be spent on journey analytics. And traditional analytics and reporting methods are moving to real-time behavior-driven engagement reports with improved customer experience.

So the next time you visit a restaurant, you know it won’t be just about the food or the service for you, but also about the interaction journey.

Similarly, for enterprises and CX professionals, the importance of customer experience will only continue to grow and journey analytics is a powerful weapon that your enterprises can use to keep their customers loyal and happy.

The post 5 Ways Customer Journey Analytics Is Disrupting The Marketplace appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> https://servion.com/blog/transforming-contact-center-marketplace-2017-servion-recognized-leading-player/ Thu, 31 Aug 2017 07:04:33 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=1217 In the recent Walt Disney-produced film ‘Zootopia’, a scene between a rabbit and a sloth who works at the Department of Motor Vehicles office demonstrates what bad customer experience used to be like. While the rabbit is in a rush to get the license details of a speeding car, but it gets stuck with a […]

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]]> In the recent Walt Disney-produced film ‘Zootopia’, a scene between a rabbit and a sloth who works at the Department of Motor Vehicles office demonstrates what bad customer experience used to be like. While the rabbit is in a rush to get the license details of a speeding car, but it gets stuck with a nonchalant sloth, who lives up to his name.

This rather odd equation represents customer-agent relationships that have often go sour in contact center environments of the past. Prior to digitization of the overall experience, customer expectations/demands were higher than what most enterprises could deliver.

Since then, contact centers have come to a realization that the customer is, in fact, the king. There is no doubt about it. And they are doing everything they can to ensure, ironically, that the king remains loyal to them. Resolution of customer issues in the preferred channel of choice in the least possible time is no longer a luxury. It is why enterprises are investing in technology that consistently offers exceptional customer experience anywhere and anytime.

With the influx of new advancements in the areas of big data and analytics, virtual agents and cloud hosting, contact centers have dramatically evolved. Many of the leading brands are adopting artificial intelligence technologies to ensure timely support and maintenance. In fact, according to Gartner, by 2020 – AI will be a top five investment priority for more than 30 percent of CIOs.



You need the right partner: Servion recognized as a leading Contact Center technology provider

Designing and implementing a smooth-running contact center that can proactively handle any volume of customer interactions and engagements across channels requires niche skills; along with in-depth experience and a track record of consulting and delivery excellence.

Servion has been at the forefront in Customer Experience Management for over 21 years. Managing over 1 billion interactions annually across 60 countries, we use our extensive knowledge of the customer journey to design contact center strategies and help clients deliver great omni-channel customer experience.

The CIO Review magazine has recognized Servion in the list of 20 Most Promising Contact Center Technology Solution Providers for 2017. This annual listing of 20 companies, who are impacting the marketplace, aids CIOs of enterprises to select the best vendor to offer contact center solutions.

You can read more about it here

(CIOReview is a published magazine for technology solutions. They provide a comprehensive platform for senior-level industrial experts, IT buyers and decision-makers to share their insights and learn about new technology trends in the market.)

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/the-four-big-waves-of-contact-center-evolution/ Wed, 30 Aug 2017 10:25:38 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=1260 Over the past two decades, Servion has evolved from being a single channel (voice) interaction expert to being an industry pioneer in omnichannel customer experience (voice, email, chat, web, POS, augmented reality and BOT’s). Managing over 1 billion customer interactions annually across 60 countries in 6 continents, Servion empowers enterprises to address both traditional and […]

The post The Four Big Waves Of Contact Center Evolution appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> Over the past two decades, Servion has evolved from being a single channel (voice) interaction expert to being an industry pioneer in omnichannel customer experience (voice, email, chat, web, POS, augmented reality and BOT’s). Managing over 1 billion customer interactions annually across 60 countries in 6 continents, Servion empowers enterprises to address both traditional and millennial expectations and therefore is the best to address all concerns.
 

 

And what better way to hear about the evolution of the contact center than to get it straight from the horse’s mouth? Manu is an industry veteran with over 26 years of experience. He has seen it all and heard it all about contact centers. Manu has donned multiple leadership roles in Product Management, Solution Consulting, Business Consulting, and Cloud Enablement. He has been instrumental in setting up and spearheading Servion’s technical consulting practice across the globe.

In this whitepaper, Manu looks at the evolution of the contact center from a different perspective. He examines the dramatic change contact center has gone through over the ages. With advancing technology and customers demanding multi-channel customer service, contact center has moved from being completely owned by the enterprise to being outsourced to BPO enterprises and finally, to being insourced – with infrastructure being managed by specialists. He also highlights the challenges related to insourcing and importance of partnering with a niche technology provider in ensuring a successful transition – from outsourcing to insourcing.

• Download the whitepaper

  Here

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/coming-age-ai-customer-experience-servion-bags-stevie-silver-award/ Tue, 22 Aug 2017 11:59:24 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=1278 A few years ago, Warner Bros. released ‘Her’, an existential science-fiction movie about a man who develops a special relationship with Samantha – an artificial intelligence-enabled Operating System. As the story progresses, Samantha shows an incredible ability to learn and grow psychologically – and even discusses matters such as love, life, and death. Soon, the […]

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]]> A few years ago, Warner Bros. released ‘Her’, an existential science-fiction movie about a man who develops a special relationship with Samantha – an artificial intelligence-enabled Operating System. As the story progresses, Samantha shows an incredible ability to learn and grow psychologically – and even discusses matters such as love, life, and death. Soon, the OS becomes his sole companion.

By no stretch of the imagination was ‘Her’ the only movie plot centered on artificial intelligence. AI has been central to the sci-fi genre for nearly a century. Epics such as Metropolis, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Blade Runner, Robocop, The Matrix, and Bicentennial Man have even become a part of the mainstream pop culture.

Modern living. Future gazing.

But unlike all these movies, the Oscar-winning ‘Her’ felt real. Samantha seemed like neither an inconceivable gadget from the future nor an algorithm based on data analysis, speech recognition, decision-making systems and language translation. She felt here and now. That is because more than ever before, artificial intelligence is becoming ubiquitous and touches our lives in the way we might not notice. Every time we call on Siri, we are using an AI-powered chatbot.

Other virtual personal assistants like Amazon Alexa / Echo are now part of everyday life as chatbots and intuitive voice services have slowly started taking over small parts of customer services.

According to the Economist, “AI will be actively implemented” in their companies within the next three years, according to 75% of surveyed executives. Another 3% say this is already the case.”

A meeting point between innovation and expectation

With conventional entry barriers vanishing and time-to-market getting shorter every year, even the most established brands are challenged by hyper disruptive business models that are based on re-engineering, disintermediating and process optimization. On the other front, mediocre messaging and stagnating delivery quality are inhibiting them from standing out from the competition.

Look at this data from Gartner for instance:



One of the biggest challenges is delivering enhanced and differentiated customer experience. Technology advancements have created major expectations in the minds of customers, who now want to communicate with businesses the same way as with their social networks. The immediacy of response, seamless interaction between communication channels and round-the-clock availability are now a minimum requirement to stay loyal to brands. This is compelling industry leaders to rethink how to engage with customers and boldly enter service realms such as VR, AR, and holograms.

At the forefront of this transformation is the coming of age of artificial intelligence. Gartner has even claimed that Artificial intelligence will be integrated into nearly every new software product and service by 2020.

AI-enabled omni-channel customer experience

Servion has been at the forefront of customer experience innovation for the last 20 years, working with blue-chip companies including many of the world’s largest banks and telecommunication operators. We have traversed the multi-channel world – from voice to email, chat, virtual reality, augmented reality and holograms. Servion has been working with Fortune 500 clients across the globe to help them tap into the power of Artificial intelligence and has produced outstanding benefits such as

• Lowering the processing cost of transactions through robotic process automation
• Improving customer response time & self-service through conversational IVR
• Understand customers like never before with customer journey analytics
• Optimising operational cost and resource management through a virtual assistant and chatbot

Earlier this year, Servion partnered with a leading bank to help them offer a humanlike voice and chat agent that can simulate a live agent – from initiating customer conversations to delivering information and taking actions on their behalf. They also wanted the virtual assistant to detect customer’s emotions, perform transactions, and augment context and personalization while elevating the overall customer experience.

Built on top of our homegrown omni-channel customer engagement platform – ServIntuit we developed a new virtual assistant solution based on Natural Language Processing Technology>/p>

This solution automates proactive text-related and voice engagement channels such as live agent support, live chat, consumer messaging apps or SMS.

Take a quick look at the video to see this works.


Virtual Assistant – powered by Artificial Intelligence | ServionWatch Video

 

Bagging the Silver Stevie Award

Every year Stevie® Awards recognizes high-achieving organizations and executives for their accomplishments and contributions worldwide. Also called as the “International Stevie”, The Annual International Business Awards (IBA) is one of the most coveted prizes in the business world. The jury hand-picks winners through a rigorous two-month long process based on average scores of more than 200 professionals worldwide.

This year, Stevie Awards recognized Servion’s AI-enabled Virtual Assistant with a Silver Stevie in the Best New Product or Service of the Year category for B2B products. We are thrilled as this award stands testament to our dedication, innovative thinking and exceptional execution abilities in ensuring client success in the world of customer experience management.

• To know more about this solution

  Read Now

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/go-robot-go-think-can-automate-processes/ Thu, 17 Aug 2017 12:21:45 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=1295 Process automation is the new frontier of proactive customer experience. The big kahuna of delivering rock-and-roll customer experience. Sure, the hype is real. Domains such as Retail, BFSI, and Telecom are incorporating virtual robots to perform definable, repeatable and rule-based tasks with greater accuracy and substantial cost savings. With Robotic Process Automation (RPA) finding a […]

The post Go Robot Go: So You Think You Can Automate Your Processes? appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> Process automation is the new frontier of proactive customer experience. The big kahuna of delivering rock-and-roll customer experience. Sure, the hype is real. Domains such as Retail, BFSI, and Telecom are incorporating virtual robots to perform definable, repeatable and rule-based tasks with greater accuracy and substantial cost savings.

With Robotic Process Automation (RPA) finding a purposeful and powerful friend in analytics, it can only turn into a bigger deal. Allowing enterprises to rapidly analyze and act on advanced metrics, it helps them streamline business processes and achieve operational benchmarks. RPA also empowers them to collect and manage crucial information on customers and their buying preferences on a timely basis.

Believe the hype but…

Send the town crier back home. Ask the nice lady to stop singing about it. Because it is clear that process automation is the next logical step in the future of customer experience. However, like with all good things, especially in the realm of emerging technologies – caution must be advised. To paraphrase an old saying goes, the settlers learn from the mistakes of the pioneers. The first-mover advantage is not always advantageous.

Having said that, Customer Experience (CX) is a combat zone where promises are made and expectations are set. As an enterprise, you cannot afford to play the waiting game, and take notes of the successes and failures of those with bigger budgets. You can lose customers in the blink of an eye. Miss out on an opportunity to better serve customers and you may as well show them to the front doors of your competitors.

In order to know what it takes to automate processes (whether backend or frontend), it is important to follow these steps prior to the implementation.


Virtual Assistant – powered by Artificial Intelligence | ServionWatch Video

Thorough evaluation:

Never rush to buy an RPA tool before understanding the project requirements. Evaluate RPA suitability and functionality along with the automation roadmap. Identify which processes are suitable for RPA. Next, explore if there are packaged software or services already available that could speed up the process of deployment instead of building a new one.

Short-term potential results:

Check if RPA can help in exploring new growth areas to generate additional revenue opportunities. By performing activities that were previously tedious or expensive, RPA tools can contribute to generating the desired outcome faster than ever before, both in shorter deployment time and speed up the processes.

Involvement of IT team and SMEs:

Ensure that your IT team understands why RPA is different from other tools in terms of security and deployment measures. Plan as early as possible so that the right tools and the right manpower are available for quicker deployment. It will also help in identifying potential bottlenecks during migration.

Availability of in-house skills:

Several skills are required, including the selection of suitable processes, best-suited tools, how to set it up, building and testing, writing necessary scripts, monitoring run-times and more. If you lack the necessary in-house capabilities, hire a consultant who can help an internal team gear up to the challenges.

Evaluate budget and build a business case:

Understand the required and available budget by considering all financial constraints. Evaluate the total cost to operate the process including the various licenses to be procured. When done right, process automation tools can alleviate pressures of overspending on workforce or innovation.

Promote employee awareness:

Let your employees be aware of RPA. The challenges that come along with the change. In today’s job market, the fear of losing employment can bring about internal resistance, leading to techno-anxiety. It is critical to communicate properly as to why you are implementing RPA. Involve those who have the desire to learn and script designing software robots, and explain clearly why mundane repetitive tasks are being eliminated. And instead, how employees can better use their time for higher value-work.

The future is right here and now

Most enterprises have a vast amount of tasks that are not automated for a variety of reasons, and robotic process automation offers potential ways to automate them. But, the expectations of RPA can be as large as the confusion about their technical abilities. The next logical step should be to partner with a technology vendor that understands the finer nuances of not just its implementation, but its prowess to improve operational efficiency, harness advanced customer data and lead to revenue opportunities.

The future of CX is no longer something to lackadaisically look forward to, with bright-eyed expressions and nonlinear expectations. It has already arrived. Right here and now. Taking quantum leaps in progressing customer experience cannot be decided on a whim. But it does not mean that patience is the need of the hour. Certainly not. In today’s growingly AI-led marketplace, it takes deliberation, perseverance and of course, the right partner to be true CX leader.

The post Go Robot Go: So You Think You Can Automate Your Processes? appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> https://servion.com/blog/journey-analytics-silver-bullet-improve-customer-experience-2/ Wed, 16 Aug 2017 09:53:01 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=1304 The customer experience sector is full of acronyms and vague descriptors, so much so that some have become quite confused with customer journey analytics. Here, we examine some of the myths surrounding customer journey analytics, highlighting why it is a vital part of an organisations customer experience management armoury. This is by no means an […]

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]]> The customer experience sector is full of acronyms and vague descriptors, so much so that some have become quite confused with customer journey analytics. Here, we examine some of the myths surrounding customer journey analytics, highlighting why it is a vital part of an organisations customer experience management armoury. This is by no means an exhaustive list of myths surrounding the subject, but we’ve chosen to debunk four of the most common misconceptions and explain how to use customer journey analytics successfully.

It’s not just about plug and play

Myth: Many see customer journey analysis as something that can be approached like a piece of technology that is plug and play. While some products do offer out-of-the-box analytics – to unearth specific issues in the customer journey, further customisation is needed.

Reality: True customer journey analysis requires the identification of the processes, people, and technologies involved. Typically, customer journey analytics starts with a consultant, gathering information by talking to the user groups of specific journeys the business wants to map. This journey does not just comprise touch points from a consumer perspective, but also all back office and IT processes. Businesses must avoid starting with a data first approach, instead starting with a process first approach. This means that the process for making the changes to a customer journey should be agreed from start to finish before taking the first step and augmenting this plan with data.

Don’t set off without a destination

Myth: All it takes is data to improve a customer journey. Many organisations believe rich data and good analysis is all it takes to make customer journeys easy to analyse and improve. The truth is that many businesses fail to decide what they want to achieve and set out on improving their customer journeys without having a destination in mind.

Reality: While data and analysts are useful, what is most important, is to figure out what you want to achieve. Organisations must take a step back and put plans in place at the beginning of the process that will allow them to achieve their goals. In this case, trying to work out what they want to achieve or what the business thinks is broken before they go about improving or fixing these elements.

AI can do this all for me, right?

Myth: Another myth is that Artificial Intelligence and automation have come so far, that customer journey analytics tools can learn, auto-correct and modify parameters based on data that is collected all by itself, giving a truly ‘hands off’ service to companies.

Reality: Unfortunately, to date, no tools in isolation can automate the improvement of customer journeys. There are systems that can self-learn and give customer journey, but independently. There will be several occasions where businesses must make the analytical models unlearn, re-learn, improve, etc. based on various outcomes. What seems to be a perfect fit in one model may not be in six months’ time. Whether this is due to the change in business operations, product behaviour or customer segments – this isn’t something that can be automated – yet.

The impossible task

Myth: Some businesses are sceptical that measuring and improving the customer journey is achievable – and in some cases, they even think it is totally impossible.

Reality: Improving the customer experience is an ongoing process that can be difficult to measure. However, good customer experience leads to a higher revenue growth – so surely this isn’t something that should be ignored? According to Forrester, organisations that provide a better customer experience are the ones that grow their revenues most successfully. Thus, one way to measure the effect of an improved customer journey is to link it to changes in revenue and customer satisfaction scores each time a change is implemented.

When it comes to making the most of any new technology, businesses should ensure they have the right information and processes available to help them benefit. Implementing customer journey analytics is no different; to succeed, businesses must have the right team, tools and processes place, so they can glean accurate insights. Customer journey analytics can prove instrumental in improving the customer experience and ultimately, the bottom line, but business must be prepared to put the legwork in to truly benefit over the long-term.

• The original article was published in Digitalisation World

  Read Now

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/ai-powered-interaction-analytics-can-transform-banking-industry/ Tue, 08 Aug 2017 11:37:21 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=1310 Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer a new jargon in the banking industry. However, what is new is that AI is moving beyond back-end processes to front-end interactions. According to Accenture’s ‘Banking Technology Vision 2017’ study, the banking industry will revolutionize the way it gathers information and interacts with customers. Banks will move towards simpler […]

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]]> Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer a new jargon in the banking industry. However, what is new is that AI is moving beyond back-end processes to front-end interactions. According to Accenture’s ‘Banking Technology Vision 2017’ study, the banking industry will revolutionize the way it gathers information and interacts with customers. Banks will move towards simpler user interfaces that will help create a more personalized customer experience. According to the report within the next three years, banks will deploy AI as their primary source for interacting with their customers.

In recent years, the availability of information is booming. Every day there are millions of consumers interacting with their banks. It can be related to a savings account, insurance, mortgage, or even credit card. The data generated during these interactions is immense. With the availability of meaningful information, banks need to capitalize and be serious about adopting Interaction Analytics.

Many banks are also under enormous economic pressure. While most banks have tried severe cost cutting methods and adopted digitization, they are far from seeing daylight. They need something new. Now is the time right for banks to adopt interaction analytics. They have to exploit data for authentic business insights and improved decision making.

The word ‘analytics’ in the contact center domain has expanded from being related only to speech to now include a variety of interactions, such as text, social media, chat, IVR, desktop etc. Interaction Analytics is the analysis of all the interactions that occur between the customer and the contact center. This interaction can take place through any channel such as telephone, email, web chat, or even through the social media. These conversations are raw and unstructured which makes analysis much more difficult. Interaction Analytics collects the unstructured data and converts them into structured data that can be searched and analyzed. Besides reducing call times and raise agent productivity, Interaction Analytics help to optimize the customer journey across all contact channels and touchpoints and provide a targeted customer experience.

 

 

Advantages of using Interaction Analytics in Banking

• Accelerates growth – Offers deeper and detailed profiling of customers helps better assess a customer’s long-term growth potential. This information can be used to provide customers with the right offerings and solutions. It can also be helpful to cross sell/up sell and provide targeted campaign according to their needs.
• Increases efficiency and productivity – Enables agents to provide faster and more accurate responses. It can help identify long hours of silence during a call and provide insights on the root cause. It can help reduce average handle time leading to increase in productivity.
• Provides visibility on agent performance – Provides overall visibility of the entire contact center operation and individual agent performance. This enables a bank to evaluate its agent’s productivity and pitfalls. They can provide additional training to agents who need coaching.
• Establishes trust with customers – By embracing newer technological innovations, banks can gain their trust with their customers. They can enhance their capabilities, improve productivity, workflow capabilities and provide better customer experience.
• Mitigates compliance risk – Since Interaction Analytics monitors every call, it can track violations or abusive language that calls for immediate action.
• Enhances customer experience – Delivers customer experience at a fraction of the incurring cost as they can understand the customer needs better and build the proper journey view.

As the banking industry becomes extremely conscientious on differentiating their brands by improving the experience their customers have across all sales and non-sales touchpoints, Interaction Analytics will be a game-changer making it possible to develop and deliver personalized service treatments that significantly enhance customer experience.

The post How AI-Powered Interaction Analytics Can Transform The Banking Industry appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> https://servion.com/blog/cxchange-2017-re-imagining-cx-city-dreams/ Wed, 02 Aug 2017 07:19:54 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=1390 Last evening, we were thrilled to host CXChange 2017- Servion’s first-ever digital Customer Experience Summit for our clients, partners and peer communities. The pulse of CX was certainly reverberating in the heart of the “city of dreams”. A melting pot of C-Suite innovators were in attendance, ready to share their thoughts on the direction in […]

The post CXChange 2017: Reimagining CX In The City Of Dreams appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> Last evening, we were thrilled to host CXChange 2017- Servion’s first-ever digital Customer Experience Summit for our clients, partners and peer communities. The pulse of CX was certainly reverberating in the heart of the “city of dreams”. A melting pot of C-Suite innovators were in attendance, ready to share their thoughts on the direction in which the future of customer experience is heading towards.

The summit kicked off with Sameet Gupte – CEO of Servion Global Solutions – talking about Servion’s evolution from a single channel specialist to a multi-channel expert; the recent success stories that we were a part of, our growth strategies and the emerging technologies that we are eager to spearhead.

Sameet, then, moderated a fireside chat had the audience glued to a panel that included TJ Singh (Research Vice President, Gartner), Chris Botting (General Manager, Customer Care Technology Group, Cisco Systems) Hamid Akhavan (Partner, Long Arc Capital) and Arun Seth (Trustee, Nasscom Foundation). They had an engaging discussion on how technology advancements are enabling businesses to create a world-class digital customer experience.



Next up, Anil Nair (Managing Director, Country Digitization Acceleration, Cisco – APAC) came to the stage to speak about how Cisco fosters innovation in the field of customer experience management to differentiate and drive exponential growth.

To close the day’s proceedings, Sanjay Gupta (Managing Director, NICE – South Asia & Middle East) spoke about “Unleashing the power of CX with Robotic Process Automation” and the ways in which it can help enterprises build lasting relationships with customers.

It was an exciting evening for us at Servion; to create a platform for our community of clients, partners and industry peers to get together and talk about the future of customer experience. And we certainly look forward to hosting CXChange at our locations across the globe.

The post CXChange 2017: Reimagining CX In The City Of Dreams appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> https://servion.com/blog/overcome-5-contact-center-threats-telecom-industry/ Thu, 27 Jul 2017 12:31:45 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=1399 In the telecommunications industry, poor customer experience is a deal breaker in the relationship between enterprises and their customers. But, it is no easy feat for contact center managers to ensure meaningful and purposeful customer interactions each and every time. With calls, messages and emails going back and forth about service offerings, new plans, network […]

The post How To Overcome These 5 Contact Center Threats In The Telecom Industry appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> In the telecommunications industry, poor customer experience is a deal breaker in the relationship between enterprises and their customers. But, it is no easy feat for contact center managers to ensure meaningful and purposeful customer interactions each and every time. With calls, messages and emails going back and forth about service offerings, new plans, network usages, etc, things can get heated between the customer and contact centers in the telecommunications industry.

While customer-first strategies are sound ideas, dealing with customer issues is just half of the solution. It is also essential that contact center managers focus on proactively overcoming challenges to keep the contact center up and running while showing customers some love.

Here are five challenges that contact center managers can face while driving exceptional customer experience in the telecom space:

Choosing the right agent for the job

One wrong move by an agent can risk losing a high valued customer. Whether providing monthly billing reports or dealing with escalations, the customer expects them to understand the problem without partaking in more than one conversation. This calls for trained agents who have both knowledge and experience to handle complex customer service issues.

Contact center managers should be able to create a workflow that agents and other teams can work around while playing to the strengths of the agents. They also need to provide the right platforms of training to agents for improving their customer service skills to perform better and handle situations better.

 

 

Reputation management

Social media drives our lives. It has become our daily newspaper. Often, we see customers sharing tales of things going wrong in their interaction with customer service agents. And one mistake can break the reputation of a service provider.

On this account, contact center managers need to identify technology and social media savvy agents who can quickly resolve customer complaints, beyond the traditional channels of communication.

First Call Resolution

In the exchange between an agent and customer, it usually takes about two or three interactions to address and solve an issue on the excess use of mobile data. But as customers, these problems should be addressed and rectified immediately.

In order to achieve First Call Resolution, contact center managers need to identify areas of improvement through critical metrics. These metrics will help investigate particular problems areas and categorize areas of training for agents with access to the information they need to give customers the answers they need.

Proactive warnings

Customers would like to communicate anytime and anywhere in today’s connected world. But there are times during seasonal or untimely spikes when customers reach out to contact centers to solve issues like excessive call dropping or loss in internet access.

Contact center managers should invest in technologies that can predict these sudden downtimes and communicate with customers through SMS blasts to maintain customer satisfaction levels. These warning messages can also include data usage alerts. To solve this issue, the enterprise can proactively reach out to customers and inform them of plans that can suit their needs better.

 

 

Efficiency in operations

When a customer reaches out to a contact center they might be put on hold due to increase in the number of interactions that agents are handling. Contact centers managers should be able to predict the number of agents available in a shift duration.

They should be able to have enough agents to handle interactions. This can be done by creating a mix of experienced, shared and dedicated agents who can be pitch in during understaffed points.

All of these challenges may be easier said than done but for contact center managers this goes a long way in improving customer retention, customer acquisition, and customer satisfaction scores.

The post How To Overcome These 5 Contact Center Threats In The Telecom Industry appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> https://servion.com/blog/how-to-improve-your-customer-experience-by-following-the-three-cs/ Tue, 25 Jul 2017 05:02:45 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=1451 Why do customers reach out to your contact center in this DIY and self-help era? They can well get their queries answered from the web, from forums and social media. They can as well transact over the web or mobile app. Customers reach out to your contact center when none of these helps or when […]

The post How To Improve Your Customer Experience By Following The Three C’s appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> Why do customers reach out to your contact center in this DIY and self-help era? They can well get their queries answered from the web, from forums and social media. They can as well transact over the web or mobile app.

Customers reach out to your contact center when none of these helps or when you haven’t provided options for the same.

When a customer reaches out to your contact center, call your 1800 number or ping on your chat applet, send a mail or post on social media, understand that it is not the beginning of their journey. They have already done their bit of work and are probably already tired by the time they reach you.

This is a point for enterprises to keep in mind when they begin interaction with every individual customer.

So at that point, what are they looking for?

We have summed it up based on years of experience, research and customer surveys as the 3 Cs of customer experience that matters.

Simply put – it is all about Context, Continuity, and Convenience.

How are these terms related, what do they imply, and why should you care about them as a customer service professional?



Setting the ‘context’ – Context is the foundation for communication, be it between humans or computers.
Without context, interactions are nothing but isolated experiences that carry no meaning.

So what is ‘context’ in a customer experience context?

We asked a few customers and this is what they had to say

If you know why I am calling,

If you could predict I am calling to reset password and provide that as the first option in the IVR menu rather than put me through the maze of menus,

If you could read my history of interactions and ask me not to repeat the same be it on the same call or multiple calls,

If you could pick up from where I dropped be it on any channel,

If you could connect me to the same agent I spoke to the last time,

If you could understand the urgency of my situation and put me to the agent directly,

If you could connect me to the technical team and resolve my issue rather than just raise a case and close the call, and

If you could treat George, Tom, and David as George, Tom and David and not single bracket me as “CUSTOMER”.

Context means knowing about the involved communication parties, their whereabouts, their issues, their history, and having an idea of their intent.

So how do we build context

And the answer is ‘data’. In customer service, context means having access to all data necessary and relevant to the customer experience, whether that is:

• Data collected during past customer interactions
• Data extracted from sources not immediately connected to the customer relationship, such as social media
• Data explicitly contributed by the customer to improve customer service, e.g. communication preferences

It is not just having data either. It is making sure that the insights, patterns, and trends are well integrated with your contact center strategy and is updated time to time. “Context-less” customer service communication results in interactions with low informational value, which can ultimately lead to little loyalty from the customer. Organizations that’s don’t apply context in their customer communication basically treat consumers as numbers.



And the story continues…

Since communication is rarely a singular event, but rather a chain of 2-way interactions that take place over time, using context to provide continuity in the dialog is essential. Without continuity, communication slows down, as context needs to be repeated and confirmed. Applied to customer service, this can quickly result in frustration as humans are used to a certain pace in everyday communication that makes heavy use of context and dialog history. If a consumer repeatedly has to re-authenticate when calling a business or repeat their issue to an agent, they suffer from the opposite of what human communication is and should be about: fast, efficiency and convenience. And whether a business wants it or not, the ease of everyday human communication is what their customer service is measured against, if mostly subconsciously.

How do we build continuity?

Continuity of communication can be created by integrating insights with routing technologies, desktop solutions and implementing intelligent self-service solutions. It calls for integrations within systems, with CRMs, with many 3rd party systems’. It calls for expertise to build a well-integrated analytics-driven contact center solution to ensure the customer feels the interactions from the past, present and across channels and other interfaces is a single well-knit story. It would put a smile on customer’s face when you tell them what they need to know even before they think to ask for it.



Law of least effort

Convenience is something that humans always have and always will strive for in whatever they do. Whether it’s about inventing tools to get help with mundane tasks, or computers to speed up business processes, convenience is a constant and everyday goal. Humans simply appreciate the convenience. Human language, for example, knows the “principle of least effort”: applying the minimum amount of effort necessary to achieve the maximum interaction result.

And when you talk convenience, you might need to think beyond customer to ensure delightful customer experience. It could be availability and access of right information on agent desktop, perfect routing mechanisms that ensure customer speaks to the right agents, perfect integrations with multiple systems and dynamic update of the same, the availability of correct reports to supervisors and managers to mitigate damage before it surfaces, efficient collaboration tools that allow agents to interact with enterprise.

With a plethora of products and services burgeoning every other day, holding your customers tight is a prodigious challenge posed to enterprises today. The power rests with the customer and to make sure enterprises thrive in competition, enterprises need to undo certain ways of handling customers and build newer ways to ensure that they not only stay with you but also promote you. The greatest marketing campaign for your brand lies with the words of your customer.

The post How To Improve Your Customer Experience By Following The Three C’s appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> https://servion.com/blog/banking-bots-new-digital-disruption/ Thu, 20 Jul 2017 12:06:21 +0000 http://servion.com/dev_blg/?p=1484 The rise of bots into the service ecosystem is enabling enterprises to reimagine the way they deliver customer experience. By now, you must have heard it through the grapevine, irrespective of which customer service industry you belong to. While some still consider it to be a case of setting the cat among the pigeons in […]

The post Banking On Bots: The New Digital Disruption Is Here appeared first on Servion Blog.

]]> The rise of bots into the service ecosystem is enabling enterprises to reimagine the way they deliver customer experience. By now, you must have heard it through the grapevine, irrespective of which customer service industry you belong to. While some still consider it to be a case of setting the cat among the pigeons in their workforce optimization, many forward-thinking enterprises are investing in AI-powered technologies such as virtual chat assistants. And it isn’t just because everyone else is talking about doing it too. They see the true value in its adoption, and they are able to harness its unified and proactive ecosystem to meet the growing demands of customers.

At the heart of this innovation is the Banking and Financial Services sector. A recent Global Consumer Banking Survey has shown that “Innovating customer experience like Fintechs is one of the four our critical areas where banks must focus their investments”.

 
“An estimated two-thirds of consumers in developed markets will use virtual personal assistant services”.
Gartner
 

Why should banks be any different from the other service providers that are integrated into the lives of customers? Money matters, right? Whether offering loans assistance, up-selling credit cards or requesting for balance details, customers – especially millennials – expect the experience to be as rapid-fire, consistent and meaningful as an online shopping transaction or an app purchase from an online mobile store. Otherwise, they may not be as loyal to their bank of choice.

Servion’s Virtual Chat assistant comes equipped with the human-like ability to cater to the specific needs of banking customers while harnessing the power of automation. It simulates a live agent – from initiating customer conversations to delivering information and taking actions on their behalf. Backed by strong IP-led CX technology platforms, it can also detect customers’ emotions, perform transactions, and augment context and personalization while elevating their overall banking experience.

Let’s take a deeper look at how Servion’s Virtual Chat assistant can ensure simplified and context-rich conversations between banks and their customers.

 

Virtual Assistant – powered by Artificial Intelligence | ServionWatch Video
 

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/how-to-excite-your-customers-with-memorable-omnichannel-journeys/ Thu, 13 Jul 2017 12:24:15 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=1705 It’s that time of the day when your hands are itching to shop on your favorite ecommerce website You want to buy something that has been on your mind for some time. Your eyes light up as you stumble upon a few promotional banners with great offers. A click on the “Buy Now” button and […]

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]]> It’s that time of the day when your hands are itching to shop on your favorite ecommerce website You want to buy something that has been on your mind for some time. Your eyes light up as you stumble upon a few promotional banners with great offers.

A click on the “Buy Now” button and soon your bank account is debited. You know that your order has been placed. Life in 2017 is pretty awesome, isn’t it? The stuff you can do by just sitting on your couch and using a smartphone or a laptop!

Online shopping has evolved so much that some of the ecommerce websites already know what you are looking for even before you tell them. No matter the channel, your whims and fancies are ready to be met.

It all looks so easy, doesn’t it?

Well, there is a ton of action that takes place behind closed doors. There are dedicated agents using cutting-edge technologies. They are collecting all your data and managing them to help you find what’s new, cost-efficient and suitable for your personal needs.

You may be wondering how all of this works. Check out the latest ServIntuit video to know more.

 

How to deliver omni-channel customer experience | ServionWatch Video
 

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/on-the-cloud-how-to-best-deliver-customer-experience/ Tue, 11 Jul 2017 12:23:20 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=1671 Whether Inbound, Outbound, Email, Chat, Mobile, Social or Analytics – it is crucial to engage customers in meaningful conversations in their preferred channel – anywhere and anytime. Especially, in today’s increasingly cloud-powered service ecosystem, it is important to ensure there is no slowdown in the day-to-day operations of the contact center. But, how do you […]

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]]> Whether Inbound, Outbound, Email, Chat, Mobile, Social or Analytics – it is crucial to engage customers in meaningful conversations in their preferred channel – anywhere and anytime. Especially, in today’s increasingly cloud-powered service ecosystem, it is important to ensure there is no slowdown in the day-to-day operations of the contact center.

But, how do you ensure your contact center performance is maintained and continuously improved?

With Servion’s ServCloud Portal, you can easily engage with customers across multi-channels, bring conversations with them in one, accelerate business outcomes and build future-ready capabilities.

So, you may wonder how this exactly works. Is it easier said than done? Check out the latest video series on ServCloud Portal to know more.


ServCloud: Cutting-edge CCaaS and UCaaS for superior CX | ServionWatch Video

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/debunk-4-myths-customer-journey-analytics/ Thu, 06 Jul 2017 12:18:48 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=1691 Customer Journey Analytics is probably the most clichéd phrase in the customer experience ecosystem today. During the course of my discussions with several organizations, I realized that there is a handful who have got it right – both the meaning and the execution. And there are those who are eager to get it right but […]

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]]>

Customer Journey Analytics is probably the most clichéd phrase in the customer experience ecosystem today. During the course of my discussions with several organizations, I realized that there is a handful who have got it right – both the meaning and the execution. And there are those who are eager to get it right but they lack clarity in execution.




Several perceptions exist on this subject. In this article, let us take a look at 4 common myths about customer journey analytics.

Myth 1: It is a plug and play approach

Often times, customer journey analysis is assumed to be just a plug and play approach. There are several products that offer this as an out-of-the-box feature. Once these products are installed, these products are expected to unearth the problems in customer journeys.

Reality:

While there are products that cater to customer journey analysis, most certainly they are not the plug and play types. There some products that act as ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) tools while others provide MDM (Master Data Management) capabilities.

Apart from this, there are those that provide great tools for visualizations. While each one is good at what they do, true customer journey analysis is much more than that. It requires identification of process, people, and technologies that constitute a journey.

Typically customer journey analytics starts with a consulting exercise where a consultant gathers information by talking to the user groups of specific journeys that the business wants to map. The journey does not just comprise of touch points from a consumer perspective but it must also map all the back office and IT processes that identify the challenges or constraints in that journey.

While tools and products are great, always start your analysis by identifying the journeys you want to map in the first place. Never start with data first approach instead start with a process first approach. Remember, data should always follow the process. Once, you have identified the process of a specific journey (say, what customers go through when they have a billing dispute) next begin by identifying each step that starts from bill generation, dispatch, customer touch point channels, complaint process, ticketing process, back office process, and closure. Once you have done this, then augment this map with data. Finally, do an analysis using the various tools to figure out where a gap exists.


How to become awesome at Contact Center Analytics? | ServionWatch Video

Myth 2: With rich data and good analysts, customer journeys can be easily analyzed

Reality

This is akin to saying that if I have a car and I know how to drive, I can drive wherever I want. True, you can go wherever you want to go but the most important thing to do before you start your journey is to know ‘where’ you want to go (unless you are on a carefree trip).

Businesses certainly cannot operate in this model. While the data is good and the analyst that you have can do wonders, what is important is to figure out what is that you want to achieve. Otherwise, you will be all over the place. One good thing about data and analytics is that you can always make data tell a story by analyzing them. There is always a story! But is that the story you are after? Think again.

So, in essence, it is quite simple! Once again, start with what you want to achieve or what you believe is broken and then go fixing or improving it.

Myth 3: There are products that learn by itself, can auto-correct and modify itself based on data that it sees over a period

Reality

Products by themselves do not do that. They only provide the platform or capability for consultants and engineers to build upon. There is quite an amount of services involved to imbibe this intelligence by using various models that bring the best out of the data that is available.

With the advent of artificial intelligence and machine learning, many tend to think that when these principles are applied in the customer journey, a software program can understand the data all by itself and apply this self-learnt intelligence to provide suggestions for improvements.

This, however, is far from the truth. While software programs can be self-learning in nature, they must be supervised. You need a good data scientist who understands not just the business needs but has an eye for detail when working with the different types and forms of data. There will be several occasions where one must make the analytical models unlearn, re-learn, improve, etc. based on outcomes. What seems to be a perfect fit in one model may not be so within six months time! This could be due to the change in business operations, product behavior, and customer segments.



Myth 4: Measuring and improving customer experience is difficult and not possible

Reality

Improving customer experience is not possible if you cannot measure it. You cannot manage what you cannot measure.

And it is proven that good customer experience leads to a higher revenue growth. Refer to the Forrester’s statistics given; organizations that provide better CX are the ones that grow better on revenues. One way to measure the effect of customer experience is to tag it with changes in revenue and customer satisfaction scores when an improvement in customer journey is implemented. Many organizations have a CSAT to Revenue correlation already available where a % point change in CSAT means an increase or decrease in revenue.

As with any new technology, it is important to get proper information about customer journey analytics, customer journey analytics software
customer journey management, tools, statistics and everything related to it for better understanding. Otherwise, these myths will remain and keep you from taking advantage of it.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/channeling-predictive-analytics-for-customer-intent-prediction/ Tue, 04 Jul 2017 05:11:50 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=1678 Gone are the days when we used to bookmark or jot down information that is of value. We would proudly share this knowledge with interested parties. But nowadays, we take a different route. We communicate via social media channels to acknowledge one’s existence. In this digital world, this changes how customers talk about brands. A […]

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]]> Gone are the days when we used to bookmark or jot down information that is of value. We would proudly share this knowledge with interested parties. But nowadays, we take a different route. We communicate via social media channels to acknowledge one’s existence. In this digital world, this changes how customers talk about brands.

A plethora of tools and channels have been extensively used to understand customers and their needs. It was forecasted that analytics will bring out the revolution in the way organizations approach their customers. However, with social media becoming a part of the daily routines of customers,real-time predictive customer experience analytics is emerging as the differentiator in the success of a brand.

Predictive analytics have been put to extensive use to find out what customers like and what they don’t. Armed with this knowledge, organizations have aligned their campaigns to promote the curate products and solutions based on the insights.



Marketers may have a preconceived notion of the customer demographic for their products or solutions. It is a combined result of individual assumption and a half-hearted market research. But with predictive analytics and proactive customer service, their marketing efforts can be streamlined to meet future demands of a focused audience.

A real-time analytical application will be able to determine who you are talking to, what they are trying to get done, and when they require help. Consumers often reveal their intent through their behavior across channels. For example, a retailer’s web page can reveal information about the products that users are interested in purchasing. It provides the groundwork for unravelling the so-called mysterious of customer intent. Blending the customer journey data of a user with his/her identity of and the context from their recent interaction histories across channels can substantially drive up the intent prediction accuracy. Factoring location data into this can further boost the prediction.

This application will be able to compare a customer’s behavior during a single interaction with the behavior of thousands of others using various statistical analysis and machine-learning techniques. It can also identify the exact points in the journey when the customer is most likely to take action or require an intervention. All this happens in real time during the regular course of the customer’s journey without requiring the customer to provide any explicit input.

The most critical step in application framework is the ability to apply the findings from the data to substantially improve subsequent interactions. Smart customer service applications can use the data that they generate to self-correct, and automatically learn from each interaction to enhance customer experience, prediction accuracy, and eventually – the outcomes.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/customer-engagement-hub-build-one/ Tue, 28 Mar 2017 11:13:46 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=1595 As is the case with many technology buzzwords, Customer Engagement Hub (CEH) may appear to be more hype than reality. But, is it just another jargon marketers use to differentiate themselves in a crowded customer experience market? Will it just remain a box of hollow promises or truly deliver value to the enterprise? Or will […]

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]]> As is the case with many technology buzzwords, Customer Engagement Hub (CEH) may appear to be more hype than reality. But, is it just another jargon marketers use to differentiate themselves in a crowded customer experience market? Will it just remain a box of hollow promises or truly deliver value to the enterprise? Or will it turn out to be a game-changer for enterprises to retain and provide true value for their customers?

Moving beyond the hype, this blog post will attempt to explain the genuine need for a customer engagement hub and what it means for enterprises today, tomorrow, and beyond 2017.

Why do enterprises need a customer engagement hub?

The stark reality in many enterprises is that contact centers and call centers are disconnected with the rest of the organization. As new customer interaction channels emerge, silos stand exposed. Ad-hoc technologies are brought in with no integration. Marketing, sales, e-commerce and contact centers seldom interact. Without the ability to gather insight into what is happening across all channels and other enterprise systems like CRM, these contact centers risk delivering a fragmented and disconnected customer experience.

On the contrary, the rise of digital and social technologies has empowered the customer more than ever before. The advent of social media and its plethora of resources has led to a vast improvement in their ability to access information and the enterprise. With this power to access, comes the power to demand. Customers have become more impulsive, impatient; often seeking instant gratification and turning to competitors in case they aren’t met. They have now become market makers with a power to transform industries.

This rise of the empowered customer and need to get it right, the first time – every time, has led to the need for a customer engagement hub. Is CEH just a hype? No. There is more to it than just another customer experience buzz word.

 

 

What is a customer engagement hub?

In the last couple of years, there has been an explosion of brands focused on providing customer engagement hubs. Customer-centric organizations today face a paradox of choice with literally hundreds of solution providers, each claiming their own definition of what constitutes a customer engagement hub. However, a customer engagement hub cannot be a fit-for-all platform, product or a piece of software that can be acquired from a single vendor. 

How do you build a customer engagement hub?

Each enterprise is unique and each customer is unique, therefore each customer engagement hub has to be unique. It cannot be procured from the market and taking one-size fits all approach will eventually lead to an undifferentiated customer experience. Gartner estimates that “by 2018, 60% of large organizations will design a CEH, yet only 20% will select the correct technologies to make it work.”

At Servion, we leverage our two decades of customer experience management legacy to help enterprise bridge this gap. We enable customer-centric enterprises to build their own unique customer experience management hub – through a framework called ServEngage.

ServEngage is a fit-for-purpose approach to customer engagement hub by integrating every channel, every enterprise application and connect it back to the core of any business – the customer.

 
“The Customer Engagement Hub (CEH) is an architectural framework that ties multiple systems together to optimally engage the customer. A CEH allows personalized, contextual customer engagement, whether through a human, artificial agent, or sensors, across all interaction channels. It reaches and connects all departments, allowing, for example, the synchronization of marketing, sales and customer service processes.”
Gartner
 

Building blocks of the customer engagement hub

Servion takes a platform-centric approach to offer unique CX platforms that help enterprises architect a unique enterprise customer engagement hub. Each of these platforms come with a flexible architecture and can integrate the best-of-the-breed and stand-alone customer experience management software.

ServDesign

Many customer experience challenges that can be attributed to the gaps between what customers expect and what can be actually delivered. These gaps can be either people, process or technology related or an alignment gap caused by the interplay of these three facets within an enterprise.

ServDesign is a business-consulting framework that helps enterprises to identify these gaps and design the right customer experience. It also offers blueprints, methods, tools, analytical models, and best practices that design a future-proof customer engagement hub.

 
Zoom Image
 

ServInsights

More than half analytics project fail because they don’t deliver the features and benefits that are agreed upon. Contact center analytics projects are no exception. They suffer from lack of multi-channel analytics, poor integration with core enterprise applications such a CRM & Data warehouses and lack the ability to offer holistic insights.

ServInsights is a contact center analytics platform from Servion that integrates data from multiple customer channels and enterprise systems. It uses advanced analytics to offer a 360-degree view of the contact center and enables informed decision making. It offers unified dashboards and advanced UX capabilities for informed decision-making. Enterprise can leverage ServInsights to perform operational performance analysis, Next Best Action analysis, customer effort score analysis and a real-time dashboard for critical contact center KPIs.

ServIntuit

Omni-channel customer experience is no longer nice to have. However, creating consistent, seamless, and hyper-personalized experiences across multiple channels and touch points is not easy. Customers often navigate between channels and expect to take-off from where the left before they switched channels. Even at the hint of slightest frustration, the customers are quick to react and they take their business elsewhere.

ServIntuit is an omni-channel customer experience platform that helps enterprises gauge customers’ intent and optimize their journey for better outcomes. ServIntuit integrates data from all enterprise channel applications such as chat, voice, website, mobile, email and video to drive personalized, consistent and contextual customer experiences. It offers a Next Best Action engine and analytics module that helps enterprises provide optimal responses to customers – on the channel of their choice.

ServCloud

Moving your customer experience management to the cloud promises to yield huge benefits to any enterprise, yet many are cautious to make the shift. Perceived high costs of migration, challenges in integration, lack of skills and the overall impact on IT organizations contribute to businesses being wary of the cloud.

ServCloud is a comprehensive cloud-based customer experience platform, built on Cisco HCS, that ensures effortless cloud adoption. ServCloud features integrated analytics and next best actions engine that offers a complete omni-channel customer experience. Whether it’s email, inbound and outbound calls, chat or social media, ServCloud enables enterprises to engage with customers in meaningful conversations, and provides a consistent, contextual and omni-channel experience, using the customer’s preferred channel.

 

ServCloud: Cutting-edge CCaaS and UCaaS for superior CX | ServionWatch Video
 

ServCare

Contact centers are made up of a diverse group of people, processes, and technologies.

Bringing these disparate components together, and making them work in harmony takes a concerted effort. They have a difficult job of keeping pace with technology advancements, increasing CX demands from customers and manage growth while keeping costs predictable. Often, operational challenges come in the way of delivering an outstanding customer experience.

ServCare is an end-to-end managed service offering for contact centers that gives them the freedom to focus on the customer instead of worrying about daily operational challenges. ServCare offers remote and onsite managed services – right from basic support services and change management to comprehensive service delivery management, advisory services, and value-added services.

What makes Servion and these building blocks unique?

Servion enables business transformation for enterprises in the area of Customer Experience Management (CEM). Over the past two decades, Servion has evolved from being a single channel (voice) interaction expert to being an industry pioneer in omni-channel customer experience. Servion manages over 1 billion customer interactions annually across 60 countries, in 6 continents. Servion’s CX experts based in USA, UK, UAE, Singapore, and India deliver measurable outcomes through consulting, advanced technologies and industry-specific IP platforms.

• To know more about building your own Customer Engagement Hub read our whitepaper

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/59-must-know-contact-center-terminologies/ Wed, 23 Nov 2016 10:46:22 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=1626 Have you ever been caught in a situation where it was all greek to you? This can happen most of the times in the contact center world since it keeps evolving day after day. Too many jargons, buzz words, acronyms, abbreviations are spoken that it is sometimes difficult to comprehend the meanings. Here is a […]

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]]> Have you ever been caught in a situation where it was all greek to you? This can happen most of the times in the contact center world since it keeps evolving day after day. Too many jargons, buzz words, acronyms, abbreviations are spoken that it is sometimes difficult to comprehend the meanings. Here is a list of the most commonly used lexicon in the contact center industry which will help you understand these seemingly difficult terminologies. What’s more, we have simplified the language for you too.

1. Abandoned call/contact – a call where the caller has hung up before the agent answers the call. In an outbound call, abandoned calls refer to calls that are disconnected by the automated dialer once a live contact is detected and no agent is available to take up the call.

2. After Call Work (ACW) – also known as ‘wrap up time’ is the period of time immediately after the transaction with the customer is completed. Work could be keying activity codes, updating the database, filling out forms, or placing an outbound contact.

3. Agent – also known as ‘customer service representative’ is the person who responds to the customer queries on behalf of the organization. This can be through any channel, for example receiving and making calls, responding to emails, talking via chat or social media.

4. Agent status – current work mode of the agent. This can be busy on call, available to receive calls, unavailable to receive calls, and after call work mode.

5. Average Handle Time (AHT) – the amount of time an agent is occupied with an incoming contact. This is the sum of transaction time and wrap-up time.

6. Automatic call back – a calling feature that allows the caller to hang up when the called individual is unavailable and instruct the system to call when the line is available or the called number is no longer busy.

7. Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) – a specialized software platform designed for handling many incoming calls. Based on the routing instructions, the system will direct the call to the most suitable skilled agent. It also queues calls.

8. Automatic Number Identification (ANI) – also known as ‘calling line identity (cli)’ is a feature on the telephone where you can see who is calling you before you answer.

9. Automated Speech Recognition (ASR) – a solution to automate some or all parts of a customer call. It allows the caller to interact with the call center, using their natural language, without the aid of an agent.

10. Average Talk Time (ATT) – is a metric that measures the time an agent spends while speaking to a customer. This does not include the time a customer spends on hold or the time an agent does any work during or after the call.

11. Blended agent – an agent who is trained to handle both and outbound calls and related applications as needed.

12. Blocked call – a call that cannot be completed because of a busy condition.

13. Call avoidance – a proactive strategy implemented to reduce inbound call volumes to the contact center.

14. Call handling analysis – this is an approach to monitor the effectiveness and quality of handling of calls by the agents.

15. Call recording – also known as ‘call logging’ is a technology that enables call centers to capture and record the interactions between the agent and the caller. The caller has to be informed before the call is recorded.

16. Call routing – this is a process designed to ensure that each call is routed to the right agent with the right skills to handle the call. This feature is mostly to route high-end customer calls to a shorter queue.

17. Contact center – also known as ‘customer interaction center’ is a central point in an office from which all customer contacts are managed. While a call center is focused primarily on voice communications, contact center offers voice services (inbound and outbound), chat, email, instant messages and web interfaces.

18. Contact Center As A Service (CCAAS) – a cloud deployed contact center that enables an organization to reduce capital expenditure and operate a fully featured, multi-channel contact center with greater scalability and flexibility.

19. Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) – connects a call center’s computer system to the agent’s phone system and integrates with the acd or dialer to help the agent identify and access customer details when on a call with the customer.

20. Cross selling – the practice of selling an additional product or service to an existing customer.

21. Database – collection of data structured and organized in a disciplined fashion for quick and easy access to information of interest.

22. Dialer – is a software application used to automate the process of dialing to external phone numbers automatically. There are different types of dialers:

• Progressive dialing – very similar to preview dialing except in this, the decision when exactly the customer is called is not made by the agent, but by the application. After the call is finished, the next call request is routed to the agent automatically.
• Preview dialing – the preview dialer selects a number from the call list and proposes this call record to an agent. The agent can look at the customer record (preview) and then decide whether to call the customer or not. Based on the response, the agent talks to the person on the other end or disconnects the call if there is an automatic answering machine, fax, busy signal or no response.
• Predictive dialing – consists of a predictive ‘algorithm’ that predicts when the agent will be available and calls are automatically made based on the above prediction.

23. Dialed Number Identification Service (DNIS) – is a telecommunications service sold to corporations that allow them to determine which number a customer dialed to reach them. This service is important for companies that have different numbers for different services even though all the calls are handled by the same call center.

24. Dual Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF) – also known as touch-tone is the signal to the phone company that you generate when you press an ordinary telephone keypad.

25. Erlang – is one hour of telephone traffic in an hour of time. Erlang b is a formula widely used to determine the number of trunks required to handle a known calling load during a one hour period. Erlang c calculates the predicted waiting times based on the number of agents, the number of people waiting to be serviced, and the average amount of time it takes to serve each person. It can also predict the resources required to keep the waiting time in check.

26. Expected Wait Time (EWT) – refers to the expected time customers may be made to wait before they are able to speak to an agent.

27. First Call Resolution (FCR) – this is an important call center metrics. This is focused on resolving a customer’s query or complaint on the first call. Fcr is used for monitoring the quality of service customers receive by counting the number of times their issues got resolved on their first point of contact.

28. Home agent/remote agent – a home /remote agent works from home or someplace else other than the actual contact center location.

29. Intelligent Call Router (ICR) – is a telecommunications network service that is able to provide information on call queuing and agent’s availability across the call center’s network. It then directs the call to the most appropriate agent. It effectively has a similar job to a switchboard operator.

30. Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) – is a set of telecommunications standards and implies to various types of communication services such as voice calls, video calls, packet-switched or data-switched data and fax transmission that can be done through this network.

31. Interactive Voice Response (IVR) – also known as ‘voice response unit (vru)’ is a technology that allows customers to respond to a menu of choices (spoken by an electronic voice) by pressing the appropriate buttons on the telephone keypad or using voice (speech recognition).

32. Key Performance Indicators (KPI) – a set of measures used by a call center to measure performance/productivity.

33. Load balancing – the process of balancing contacts between multiple sites, queues or agent groups.

34. Multi-skilled agent – agents who have the skills to handle a variety of calls.

35. Next available agent – a call distribution method where the first contact in the queue is routed to the first available agent. If no queue exists, contacts are routed to the agent who has been sitting idle for a long time (longest available agent).

36. Nuisance call – refers to any type of unwanted, unsolicited telephone call. This includes prank/crank calls, telemarketing, and silent calls. Silent calls are telephone calls generated by the predictive dialer but there is no agent available immediately to take the call.

37. Outbound call – calls that are initiated by a call center agent to a customer and are different from calls that come into the call center and are answered by the agent (inbound call).

38. Private Branch Exchange (PBX) – a private branch exchange located on the users’ premises and connected to the public network via trunks. Sometimes known a pabx where ‘a’ stands for automatic.

39. Public Switched Network (PSTN) – is the wired phone system over which landline telephone calls are made. It relies on circuit switching. It consists of a collection of individual telephones that are hardwired to a public exchange.

40. Queue – the waiting line for delayed calls. A queue holds the call until an agent is available.

41. Response time – the total amount of time it takes to respond to a service.

42. Screen pop – any technology, including ivr, ani, or cti, that presents corresponding data on the computer screen simultaneously with the incoming call.

43. Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) – is a communications protocol for signaling and controlling multi-media communicated sessions such as voice and video calls.

44. Service Level Agreement (SLA) – is a contract between the service provider and its customer that documents what services the provider will furnish and defines the performance standards the provider is obligated to meet.

45. Silent Monitoring – a process that permits a supervisor to listen to both sides of a conversation including an agent and a caller. Used for determining training needs and performance quality. Neither agent nor caller is aware that the monitoring is taking place.

46. Skill Based Routing (SBR) – a method of routing calls in which the call is routed to the person best able to meet that caller’s needs, rather than simply routing to the first available or longest idle agent.

47. Speech recognition – the capability of a voice processing system to recognize and translate human voice signals into digital signals a computer system can understand. Includes both speaker dependent and speaker independent systems, and may work through discrete syllable recognition (most basic) or continuous speech recognition (most advanced).

48. Talk time – the time elapsed from when an agent answers the call till the agent disconnects the call.

49. Trunk – a single transmission channel between two points, both of which are either switching centers or nodes, or both.

50. Unified Communication (UC) – is a set of communication services and solutions bundled, sold and delivered together as a single cohesive solution. Ucs enables the use of voice, data, internet, video and other communication services through an integrated product or system which is developed by a single vendor or in collaboration with supported partners.

51. Universal agent – an agent who can handle multiple types of contact.

52. User Interface (UI) – is a broad term for any system, either physical or software based, that allows a user to connect to a given technology. Graphical user interface (gui) is a type of user interface that allows a user to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and visual indicators.

53. Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) – is a technology that allows telephone services to be delivered over the internet. It uses facilities, such as digital data packets to deliver voice information over the internet. It can be a popular choice, as voip service providers are normally offered at a lower cost than traditional phone companies.

54. Virtual call center – the concept of having network and agent resources that are located at multiple physical sites perform as if all resources were located at a single site.

55. Virtual Private Network (VPN) – is a private network that is built over a public infrastructure. Security mechanisms, such as encryption, allow vpn users to securely access a network from different locations via a public telecommunications network, most frequently the internet.

56. Wallboards – this is an electronic display showing; team performance, key performance criteria, service level, call queuing, etc within a call center. It can be used as a way of motivating the team, or as a reminder of the speed and level of service that the agents should be delivering.

57. Wide Area Network (WAN) – is a network that exists over a large-scale geographical area. A wan connects different smaller networks, including local area networks (lan) and metro area networks (man). This ensures that computers and users in one location can communicate with computers and users in other locations.

58. WorkForce Management (WFM) – the art and science of having the right number of agents, at the right times, to answer an accurately forecasted volume of incoming calls at the service level standard set by the call center.

59. Workforce Optimization (WFO) – is a strategy used in business with a focus on maximum customer satisfaction and benefits with minimal operational costs and supported by integrated technologies, cross-functional processes, and shared objectives.

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]]> https://servion.com/blog/135-inspirational-customer-experience-quotes/ Thu, 07 Apr 2016 07:01:23 +0000 http://servion.com/blog/?p=1640 For companies that strive to be among the best care takers of their customers and deliver service excellence here is the ultimate list of quotes. These are the wise words from business legends, customer experience crusaders, inspiring authors and marketing geniuses. We believe the below customer experience quotes speak essential yet simple truths, some to […]

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]]> For companies that strive to be among the best care takers of their customers and deliver service excellence here is the ultimate list of quotes. These are the wise words from business legends, customer experience crusaders, inspiring authors and marketing geniuses. We believe the below customer experience quotes speak essential yet simple truths, some to abide by and others for display as a daily reminder.

Marketing

“We take most of the money that we could have spent on paid advertising and instead put it back into the customer experience. Then we let the customers be our marketing.” – Tony Hsieh

“Customer service is the new marketing.” – Derek Sivers

“One customer well taken care of could be more valuable than $10,000 worth of advertising.” – Jim Rohn

 

 

“The best advertising you can have is a loyal customer spreading the word about how incredible your business is.” – Shep Hyken

“If you make a sale, you can make a living. If you make an investment of time and good service in a customer, you can make a fortune.”- Jim Rohn

“So, get to know your customers. Humanize them. Humanize yourself. It’s worth it.” – Kristin Smaby

Expectation

“Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong.” – Donald Porter

“The customer’s perception is your reality.” – Kate Zabriskie

“Customer service is an opportunity to exceed your customer’s expectations.” – John Jantsch

“Customers today want the very most and the very best for the very least amount of money, and on the best terms. Only the individuals and companies that provide absolutely excellent products and services at absolutely excellent prices will survive.” – Brian Tracy



“Don’t try to the customer what he wants. If you want to be smart, be smart in the shower. Then get out, go to work and serve the customer!” – Gene Buckley

“Always give people more than what they expect to get.” – Nelson Boswell

“When a customer complains, he is doing you a special favor; he is giving you another chance to serve him to his satisfaction. You will appreciate the importance of this opportunity when you consider that the customer’s alternative option was to desert you for a competitor.” – Seymour Fine

“Know what your customers want most and what your company does best. Focus on where those two meet.” – Kevin Stirtz

Service

“Customer service is part of a holistic customer experience that is capable of providing a critical competitive advantage in today’s increasingly cluttered and commoditized marketplace.” – Joseph Jaffe

“Being on par in terms of price and quality only gets you into the game. Service wins the game.” – Tony Allesandra

“We asked ourselves what we wanted this company to stand for. We didn’t want to just sell shoes. I wasn’t even into shoes – but I was passionate about customer service.”- Tony Hsieh

 

 

“Service, in short, is not what you do, but who you are. It is a way of living that you need to bring to everything you do, if you are to bring it to your customer interactions.” – Betsy Sanders

“Customer service starts where customer experience fails.” – Chris Zane

“Whether you are big or small, you cannot give good customer service if your employees don’t feel good about coming to work.” – Martin Oliver

“If you’re not serving the customer, your job is to be serving someone who is.” – Jan Carlzon

Quality

“Quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten.” – Gucci Family Slogan

“Biggest question: Isn’t it really ‘customer helping’ rather than customer service? And wouldn’t you deliver better service if you thought of it that way?” – Jeffrey Gitomer



“The longer you wait, the harder it is to produce outstanding customer service.” – William H. Davidow

“Know what your customers want most and what your company does best. Focus on where those two meet.” – Kevin Stirtz

“Courteous treatment will make a customer a walking advertisement.”– J.C.Penny

Success

“Being on par in terms of price and quality only gets you into the game. Service wins the game.” – Tony Allesandra

“All business success rests on something labeled a sale, which at least momentarily weds company and customer.” – Tom Peters



“Customer service is just a day in, day out ongoing, never ending, and unremitting, persevering, compassionate, type of activity.” – Leon Gorman

“If you work just for money, you’ll never make it, but if you love what you’re doing and you always put the customer first, success will be yours.” – Ray Kroc

Purpose

“The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best but legendary.” – Sam Walton

“We don’t want to push our ideas on to customers, we simply want to make what they want.” – Laura Ashley

“We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job to make the customer experience a little bit better.”- Jeff Bezos



“The purpose of a business is to create a customer who creates customers.” – Shiv Singh

“We have entered the era of the customer. Today, providing customers with outstanding customer service is essential to building loyal customers and a long lasting brand.” – Jerry Gregoire

“Our greatest asset is the customer! Treat each customer as if they are the only one!” – Laurice Leitao

Value

“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” – Albert Einstein

“To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.” – Donald A. Adams



“Listening to feedback makes customers feel more appreciated and part of the value creation process.” – Ray Poynter

Commitment

“Make the customer the hero of your story.” – Ann Handley

“We don’t want to push our ideas on to customers, we simply want to make what they want.” – Laura Ashley

“Every company’s greatest assets are its customers, because without customers there is no company.”- Michael LeBoeuf

“If you love your customer to death, you can’t go wrong.” – Graham Day

“Customer service represents the heart of a brand in the hearts of its customers.” – Kate Nasser

“Customer service is the experience we deliver to our customer. It’s the promise we keep to the customer. It’s how we follow through for the customer. It’s how we make them feel when they do business with us.” – Shep Hyken

“Customer service is a voluntary act that demonstrates a genuine desire to satisfy, if not delight, a customer.” – Steve Curtin

Respect

“If you don’t care, your customer never will.” – Marlene Blaszczyk

“The way to a customer’s heart is much more than a loyalty program. Making customer evangelists is about creating experiences worth talking about.” – Valeria Maltoni

“Every company’s greatest assets are its customers, because without customers there is no company.” – Michael LeBoeuf

“When a customer enters my store, forget me. He is king.” – John Wanamaker

“If you respect the customer as a human being, and truly honor their right to be treated fairly and honestly, everything else is much easier.” – Doug Smith

 

 

“The single most important thing is to make people happy. If you are making people happy, as a side effect, they will be happy to open up their wallets and pay you.” – Derek Sivers

“It’s easier to love a brand when the brand loves you back.”– Seth Godin

“Profit is the applause you get for taking care of your customers and creating a motivating environment for your employees.” – Unknown

“In the world of Internet Customer Service, it’s important to remember your competitor is only one mouse click away.” – Doug Warner

Attitude

“Customer service is the new marketing.”- Derek Sivers

“Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.” – Steve Jobs

“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.” – Mother Teresa

 

 

“Right or wrong, the customer is always right.” – Marshall Field

“How you think about your customers influences how you respond to them.” – Marilyn Suttl

“Customer service is not a department, it’s an attitude!”- Unknown

Work

“It is not your customer’s job to remember you, it is your obligation and responsibility to make sure they don’t have the chance to forget you.”- Patricia Fripp

“For us, our most important stakeholder is not our stockholders, it is our customers. We’re in business to serve the needs and desires of our core customer base.” – John Mackey

“We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.” – Jeff Bezos

 

 

“A lot of people have fancy things to say about customer service, but it’s just a day-in, day-out, ongoing, never-ending, persevering, compassionate kind of activity.” – Christopher McCormic

“A sale is not something you pursue; it’s what happens to you while you are immersed in serving your customer.” – Unknown

“If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell six friends. If you make customers unhappy on the internet, they can each tell 6,000.” – Jeff Bezos

“Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business.” – Zig Ziglar

Wisdom

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” – Bill Gates

“Customer service isn’t a department, it’s a philosophy!” – Shep Hyken

“Unless you have 100% customer satisfaction, you must improve.” – Horst Schulz

“Good customer service costs less than bad customer service.”– Sally Gronow

“He profits most who serves best.” – Arthur F. Sheldon

“Follow the customer, if they change — we change.”- Sir Terry

“Customers often know more about your products than you do. Use them as a source of inspiration and ideas for product development.” – David J. Greer

 

 

“If you get everybody in the company involved in customer service, not only are they ‘feeling the customer’ but they’re also getting a feeling for what’s not working.” – Penny Handscomb

“You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology, not the other way around.” – Steve Jobs

“Whoever understands the customer best, wins.” – Mike Gospe

“The customer experience is the next competitive battleground.” – Jerry Gregoire

“Until you understand your customers – deeply and genuinely – you cannot truly serve them.” – Rasheed Ogunlaru

“The single most important thing to remember about any enterprise is that there are no results inside its walls. The result of a business is a satisfied customer.” – Peter Drucker

Customer First

“Everything starts with the customer.” – Louis XIV

“If you’re competitor-focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something. Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering.” – Jeff Bezos

“When the customer comes first, the customer will last.”- Robert Half

“If you love your customer to death, you can’t go wrong.” – Graham Day

 

 

“So I think instead of focusing on the competition, focus on the customer.” – Scott D. Cook

“Revolve your world around the customer and more customers will revolve around you.” – Heather Williams

“We’re not competitor-obsessed, we’re customer-obsessed. We start with what the customer needs and we work backwards. – Jeff Bezos

“Choose your customers. Fire the ones that hurt your ability to deliver the right story to the others.” – Seth Godin

Communication

“Whatever your business is, talk to your customers and provide them with what they want. It makes sense.” – Robert Bowman

“Service, in short, is not what you do, but who you are. It is a way of living that you need to bring to everything you do, if you are to bring it to your customer interactions.” – Betsy Sanders

“Go beyond merely communicating to ‘connecting’ with people.” – Jerry Bruckner

“Every contact we have with a customer influences whether or not they’ll come back. We have to be great every time or we’ll lose them.” – Kevin Stirtz

 

 

“Spend a lot of time talking to customers face to face. You’d be amazed how many companies don’t listen to their customers.” – Ross Perot

“Customers may forget what you said but they’ll never forget how you made them feel.” – Unknown

“Make a customer, not a sale.” – Katherine Barchetti

“Memorable customer service can only take place in a human-to-human situation.” – Jeffrey Gitomer

“If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.” – Jeff Bezos

Business

“A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.”- Michael LeBoeuf

“Each business is a victim of Digital Darwinism, the evolution of consumer behavior when society and technology evolve faster than the ability to exploit it.” – Brian Solis

“Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers.” – Seth Godin

“For or us, our most important stakeholder is not our stockholders, it is our customers. We’re in business to serve the needs and desires of our core customer base.” – John Mackey

“Profit in business comes from repeat customers; customers that boast about your product and service, and that bring friends with them.” – Edwards Deming

“Be dramatically willing to focus on the customer at all costs, even at the cost of obsoleting your own stuff.” – Scott D. Cook

 

 

“There is a spiritual aspect to our lives — when we give, we receive — when a business does something good for somebody, that somebody feels good about them!” – Ben Cohen

“It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money … It is the customer who pays the wages.” – Henry Ford

“The biggest risk is not taking any risk … In a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” – Mark Zuckerberg

“Profit in business comes from repeat customers; customers that boast about your product and service, and that bring friends with them.” – Edwards Deming

“Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business.” – Zig Ziglar

“Good service is good business.” – Siebel Ad

Customer Loyalty

“There is a big difference between a satisfied customer and a loyal customer.”- Shep Hyken

“Since it’s so expensive to gain new customers today, what can you do to establish an unbreakable bond?” – Chet Holmes

“Repeat business or behavior can be bribed. Loyalty has to be earned.”- Janet Robinson

 

 

“Your customer doesn’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” – Damon Richards

“Customer satisfaction is worthless. Customer loyalty is priceless.”- Jeffrey Gitomer

“Merely satisfying customers will not be enough to earn their loyalty. Instead, they must experience exceptional service worthy of their repeat business and referral. Understand the factors that drive this customer revolution.” – Rick Tate

Culture

“Everyone in an organization should be involved with customer service, not only are they feeling the customer but they are getting a feeling for what’s not working.” – Penny Handscomb

“Whether you are big or small, you cannot give good customer service if your employees don’t feel good about coming to work.” – Martin Oliver

 

 

“You’ll never have a product or price advantage again. They can be easily duplicated, but a strong customer service culture can’t be copied.” – Jerry Fritz

“You are serving a customer, not a life sentence. Learn how to enjoy your work.” – Laurie McIntosh

Hope you found all the inspiration to lend an exceptional customer experience culture to live by. Visit our blog for more.

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