Web Customer Service and Customer Collaboration

Web Customer Service and Customer Collaboration

© 2011 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Contents

Contents

Executive Summary

WCS Framework

Business Drivers

Trends and Best Practices

Trend 1: Customer Sensitivity to Quality

Best Practices

Trend 2: Centralized Knowledge Management

Best Practices

Trend 3: Unified Channels

Best Practices

Trend 4: Social Networking

Best Practices

Trend 5: Mobile Device Proliferation

Best Practices

For More Information

Multichannel Vendors

Deployment Models

For More Information

Customer Collaboration

Cisco SocialMiner

Cisco Finesse

Cisco MediaSense

For More Information

Next Steps

Executive Summary

The way customers choose to communicate with your company is rapidly evolving. The traditional voice channel, while still extant, is being supplanted by new communication channels that allow access to corporate information, 24X7. With so many communication options at customer fingertips, it is not easy to identify which new channels should be supported by your business.

It is evident that new communication channels are introduced, adopted, and pervade society with overwhelming speed. These new channels, referred to as Web Customer Service (WCS) channels by Gartner, include e-mail, web chat, collaborative browsing, virtual assistants, Short Message Service (SMS) or text messaging, and other multimodal communication channels. Beyond these multichannel communication options, we move into the realm of what Cisco calls Customer Collaboration.

Customer Collaboration combines traditional contact center technology and processes with important additions incritical areas to enable businesses and organizations to build deeper relationships with their customers -strengthening loyalty and generating additional revenue. Customer Collaboration empowers businesses andorganizations to escape from the largely reactive mode of traditional call centers and instead embrace a much moreproactive engagement model with their customers.

This white paper will not only help business decision makers create a strategy and business case for WCS deployments, but it will also serve to introduce Cisco’s strategic vision for Customer Collaboration.

WCS Framework

In order to create a strategy and business case for WCS deployments, it is helpful to understand the components that comprise the WCS framework.

According to Gardner, there are seven primary components:

• Knowledge base for self-service — Web-based self-service supported by a knowledge management engine and database through which advanced content delivery is performed.

• E-mail response management — E-mail management environment with optical character recognition (OCR), e-mail routing, virtual e-mail agents, automated e-mail categorization and escalation, keyword spotting and text emotion detection.

• Web chat — Online Web text-based interaction with a live agent or speech-based interaction with a virtual assistant. The Web chat sessions are routed in a similar manner to voice calls, and a group of text chat agents will engage with the client when receiving an incoming Web chat request.

• Collaborative browsing — Simultaneous browsing of a website to assist with shopping cart or forms completion. Often referred to as "assisted forms completion," this activity will allow an agent to respond to a customer request for online assistance or click-for-help requests.

• Virtual assistant — Interaction with a virtual entity (humanoid) via a Web-based or mobile device interface. Interaction types are text-to-text, text-to-speech, speech-to-text and speech-to-speech.

• Mobile customer service with SMS — Service notification and requesting via mobile device or smartphone using data and an SMS channel, and the embedding of a URL into an SMS text.

• Multichannel interaction recording — Recording of the Web searches, e-mail chain, Web chat transcripts, collaborative browse session or SMS interactions for quality purposes.

In addition to the primary components, there are two further components that are important for managing the Web customer experience:

• Multichannel analytics — The use of business intelligence and analytical tools to obtain comprehensive insight into the usage of and customer interaction across all the channels deployed.

• Multichannel feedback management — Using survey tools to obtain customer feedback across all the above channels following an interaction within a WCS channel.

Business Drivers

Further, Gartner goes on to say that the primary business drivers for investing in the WCS framework are as follows:

• The avoidance of high costs associated with traditional channels

• Procuring a suite solution today that will also cater to future requirements, as opposed to procuring many point-based solutions

• Increasing governance associated with recording interactions across all the customer channels

• The need for a consistent customer experience across all channels and a “one correct answer” scenario

• Engaging with a completely new customer through new channels that typically did not enjoy interactions over the mostly phone-base channels of the past

Your strategy and business case should be based on these or similar business drivers.

Trends and Best Practices

Understanding the WCS framework is helpful, but it offers no insight into where businesses should begin in the development of a strategy for deploying WCS solutions.Likewise, understanding the primary business drivers for investing in the WCS framework is helpful, but again, it offers no clues on where to begin the transformation roadmap.

The most beneficial place to start constructing a viable strategy is by examining relative trends and best practices.However, the manner in which trends and best practices are typically presented may also offer little help to business decision makers due to the lack of prioritization.

In this section, we go further than just presenting the major trends and best practices related to WCS. We focus first on the trends and best practices necessary to build a solid WCS foundation and then continue to build on top of it. This should prove helpful when crafting a WCS strategy and business case.

Trend 1: Customer Sensitivity to Quality

Your customers are in the driver’s seat when it comes to perception of quality. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about products or services; consumers have developed an increasing sensitivity to quality. If your customers cannot get what they want, when they want it, and by whatever means they choose, frustration and intolerance may compel them to investigate alternatives. Simply put, if you cannot satisfy your customers with superb quality, they will take the entrance ramp to the information highway and explore their options further up the virtual road.

Best Practices

Find out what your customers want: The best way to find out what they want is to ask them. The easiest way to do this is through voice and web-based surveys. Once you know what they want, you can prioritize your customer service initiatives based on what is most important to your customers.

Offer new interaction options: Based on your surveys, you will be able to prioritize new interaction options. Your customers may want web self-service, email response automation, web chat or collaborative browsing, but where best to start is a mystery until your customers have expressed how they prefer to interact with your company.

Trend 2: Centralized Knowledge Management

Once you have prioritized the new interaction options, you have to consider how best to manage the overabundance of information that will be generated once you deploy the new channels.You must be able to centrally gather the information from multiple sources, organize it, and make it accessiblein personalized and flexible ways.

Best Practices

Create a Knowledge Base (KB): According to Gartner…

“Knowledge Basefor self-service is the most important building block and is composed of a set of WCS modules and technologies enabling customers to service their needs via different interfaces. Organizations planning a WCS implementation must create a multichannel strategy, implement each channel with a long-term view and build a justification based on the value derived from that channel.

Knowledge Base for self-service solutions that are justified only on case load reduction, or on inquiry deflection, will fail. A proper strategy to serve multiple channels and multiple functions with a WCS solution is the easiest way to prove the value of a new solution; ROI calculations must focus on potential revenue, as well as cost deflection.

The true value of knowledge base for self-service is not possible without a long-term commitment to ongoing fine-tuning and enhancing.”

Follow the 80-20 rule: The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80-20 rule, has become an almost universal rule. Relative to contact center, it simply means that 20% of all customer interactions will account for 80% of the work. When it comes to the creation of a Knowledge Base, it is good idea to follow the 80-20 rule: identify which 20% of customer interaction topics should be included in the Knowledge Base.

Trend 3: Unified Channels

Nowthat you know what your customers want and you’ve created a centralized KB with self-learning capabilities, you are ready to offer other communication options. The key point to remember is that all customer interactions must be handled in a unified manner. Regardless of the channel in which your customers choose to interact with you, it is critical that the information they receive is consistent across all touch points.

Best Practices

Tightly Integrate Channels:If the delivery of “one right answer” is an important goal, then the communication channels must be integrated to the greatest degree possible. It is for this reason that Gartner discovered in a recent survey that“…more than 80% of multi-channel product buyers preferred a more comprehensive WCS suite, as opposed to a stand-alone single-channel or point-based product that requires extensive cross-channel integration each time a new channel is added.”

A comprehensive WCS suite is based on a modular design. That is, you add WCS components as business needs dictate and all channels are tightly integrated with shared knowledge, interaction data, and service processes across all channels.

Trend 4: Social Networking

This is an obvious and possibly troubling trend that should not be ignored. Through blogs, wikis, community forums, discussion boards, and social networking sites (like Facebook and Twitter),customers potentially share experiences they’ve had with products and services. This isn’t bad when the experiences are positive, but when they are negative the information can “go viral” literally overnight.

Best Practices

Develop a social media strategy:Engage customers proactively by providing support of online communities of users.Find out where customers are communicating most about your products and services and create a strategy to participate in online discussions. This will help you understand what customers really think and give you the opportunity to address negative perceptions and complaints in plain sight of others. The online communities that you support will appreciate that you are listening and available to assist them when needed.

Allow customers to share their knowledge:There are customers that know more about your products and services than you do. Empower them to share their knowledge with peers by facilitating online forums and communities.Although it is important that you contribute to these moderated environments, it is also important that you do not try to control them.

Trend 5: Mobile Device Proliferation

Mobile technologies aren’t just used for voice conversations anymore. The proliferation of mobile devices has caused a boom in mobile social networking. Your customers can now live online because they are no longer tethered to immobile devices for access to online information.

Best Practices

Develop a mobile strategy:Mobile technologies used for social networking and access to information represents another opportunity that should not be quickly dismissed. Because it will only continue to grow, you need explore where you might be able to offer unique services to your customers through chatbot, self-service widgets, and SMS.

Adopt mobile “apps”: According to eGain, “The most cost-effective way of enabling support for mobile devices is to create mobile apps or widgets for various capabilities such as case management, KB search, and agent or chatbot sessions.”

Provide SMS Support: This is another interaction channel that should be integrated into your comprehensive WCS suite. Again, this will give you the ability to share knowledge, interaction data, and service processes across all channels.

For More Information

For more detailed information regarding WCS related Trends and Best Practices, refer to the following document:

eGain: “Contact Center and Web Customer Experience Megatrends and Next Practices: 2011 Update”

Multichannel Vendors

To further assist in the construction of a solid WCS strategy and business case, information should be collected from the solution providers who operate in the WCS space. They can share their vision with you and assist in the construction of a technology roadmap. Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Web Customer Service provides a quick look at the top vendors.

Figure 1:Magic Quadrant for Web Customer Service

Source: Gartner “MagicQuadrant for Web Customer Service”

The table below has been provided as a quick reference to the solution providers and the WCS components they offer. Although a solution provider may not appear under a particular framework component, it does not mean that they do not partner with another company to deliver that solution component. However, as mentioned earlier, it is important to plan for the tightest integration possible through the deployment of integrated suites.

Table 1:Multichannel Vendors and Component Offerings

Vendor / Knowledge Management / E-mail Response Management / Web Chat / Collaborative Browsing / Virtual Assistant / Mobile Customer Service with SMS / Multichannel Interaction Recording / Multichannel Analytics / Multichannel Feedback Management
Artificial Solutions / / / / / /
ATG / / / /
Avaya / / / /
eGain / / / / / / / /
Eptica / / / / /
Genesis / / / / / / /
Interactive Intelligence / / /
Kana / / / /
nGenera / / / /
Oracle-Siebel / / /
Presence Technology / / / /
RightNow / / / / /
SAP / / / /

Deployment Models

Many companies today are investigating the feasibility of alternative deployment models. The table below has been provided as a convenient reference. Keep in mind that deployment models can change based on mergers and acquisitions. If you have any questions about deployment models, you should direct them to the solution provider.

Table 2:Multichannel Vendors and Deployment Models

Company / On-Premises / Hosted / SaaS
Artificial Solutions /
ATG /
Avaya /
eGain / / /
Eptica / /
Genesis / / /
Interactive Intelligence / / /
Kana / / /
nGenera / / /
Oracle-Siebel /
Presence Technology / / /
RightNow /
SAP /

*SaaS – Software as a Service (on-demand offering)

For More Information

For more detailed information regarding Web Customer Service, please refer to the following Gartner document:

Gartner: “Magic Quadrant for Web Customer Service”

Customer Collaboration

Customer Collaboration Solutions help create the foundation for positive customer service, a primary factor in building a stronger business. Cisco Customer Care products can help you:

• Escape from the largely reactive mode of traditional call centers and engage more proactively with your customers
• Promote true customer intimacy, satisfaction, and loyalty
• Connect people with the information, expertise, and support they need when and where they need it most

Transform customer care from simple phone transactions to unique, rich collaboration experiences that can be customized to meet the needs of individual customers. Cisco Customer Collaboration Solutions and products help your business in four critical ways:

Build Competitive Advantage

Use voice, web, email, video, chat, analytics, and social media to personalize customer service.

Accelerate Time to Resolution

Advanced communications help agents quickly identify and resolve potential problems.

Enhance Customer Satisfaction

Help customers quickly access agent assistance.

Increase Revenue Opportunities

Create more productive sales opportunities.

Cisco SocialMiner

CiscoSocialMiner is a social media customer care solution that enables your company to proactively respond to customers and prospects communicating through public social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook or other public forum or blogging sites. By providing social media monitoring, queuing, and workflow to organize customer posts on social media networks and deliver them to your customer care team, your company can respond to customers in real time through the same social network they are using to communicate.

This innovative customer service capability is enabled by Cisco SocialMiner, which searches multiple social networks to capture public customer postings - and then organizes, filters, and prioritizes these postings and presents them to your customer care team for response. Your customer service representatives could respond to a customer service problem or reach out to new customers looking for information about your products or services.

Cisco Finesse

Cisco Finesse is the next-generation agent and supervisor desktop for Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise, providing benefits across a variety of communities that interact with your customer service organization. It is designed to provide a collaborative experience that improves the customer experience by enhancing customer service representative experience.