automating sms and ivr | babelforce insight

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Insight

AUTOMATING SMS AND IVR


Do some of your inbound calls involve relatively simple queries? Could some of them be partially automated? Could you reduce your agent-handling time and allow your agents to focus on the queries that really need their expertise?

In this babelforce Insight paper we will go through in detail how to automate common tasks and the benefits to your business. We are going to look at two common examples that we see in businesses across many segments:

Inbound calls with queries that can be addressed by triggering SMS containing links and text information

Inbound calls that can be answered using IVR

We will go through two scenarios to illustrate how such use cases look, and for each one show how solutions can be implemented.

INSIGHT: AUTOMATING SMS AND IVR

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Scenario 1: SMSYour company has a medium sized contact center which offers support to customers in the UK and Spain. The services must be provided in English and Spanish.

Breakdown of call cases• 27% of inbound calls require that agents direct the caller to use their online account or the help

center to solve the problem

• 35% need to get info on a single technical setup problem

• 38% of inbound calls are about complex queries that require billing corrections, processing payments, responses to debt queries, technical support requiring one-to-one help

Fig. 1 shows that of all call cases, the first two kinds (62%) could be solved more efficiently by customers visiting their online account or the help center.

It makes sense to reduce the number of these calls being taken by agents. This would cut down on the use of call center resources, as well as improving the customer experience: wait times go up when agents are busy answering queries. Waiting on hold to then end up getting an email or instructions to go to their online account is not optimal for the caller either.

Fig. 1


To achieve this, the contact center makes use of a babelforce SMS service which directs these customers to self-service resources: the online account and the help center.

With this they can send a support SMS one of two ways:

• Automatically, to the mobile number from which the call is being made• To a mobile number of the customer’s choice, entered using the dialpad

Importantly, the content of the SMS must be in the correct language for the customer.

The platform tests the first few digits of every incoming call number. Based on international country dialling codes, as well as the format of the number, the platform can decide whether a call has been made from a customer in Spain or Britain, and whether it is a mobile number or a landline number. In other words, it tests for:

1. Country prefix2. Mobile format

Let’s go into a bit of detail to explain how this works. For each of the two call attributes just described there exist two triggers, named after what they test.

1. Country prefix 2. Mobile format

If the call number is prefixed with 44, the trigger Call from UK is fired. If it is prefixed with 34, the trigger Call from Spain is fired. Simple.

Depending on which trigger fires, the call can be routed to different agents and services.

Mobile phone numbers in Spain begin with either 06 or 07, and in the UK only 07.

Spain mobile is fired if the incoming call number starts with either 346 or 347. The trigger UK mobile is used if the number starts with 447.

Automated SMS: the babelforce

solution

SMS



solution

SMSIf any trigger fires the platform has processed and in essence ‘knows’, that the call is from a Spanish or UK mobile phone number. This knowledge is kept in the context of the call and can be used to make process and interaction decisions.

Once a call has got through to the main service, it gives the caller the option to use the SMS self-service route. Many customers will now select this option, as it leads to the fastest solution of their issue.

Now that the platform has decided which language to offer support in, the support SMS can be sent one of the two ways outlined above. For convenience, let us say an incoming call uses the Call from UK trigger:

Fig. 2


SMS


solution

Automatic sendFirst let’s look at a customer calling from a mobile phone. Once they choose the ‘SMS Service’ option, the platform realises that the UK mobile trigger has also been fired and routes the call down the “Yes” path to another application which automatically sends the SMS.

Because they have complete control over this automation, the call center manager writes whatever they wish into the support SMS and can keep it updated. They paste a link into it which goes to the URL of their online account login and the help center. This SMS is sent by the platform to the valid mobile number which matches that of the incoming call. A recorded message is played to the customer to inform them of this action. Instant service.

Input sendAnother customer calls from a UK landline. UK mobile has not been fired, so the platform routes the call instead down the “No” path to a different application. This one asks the customer to enter a mobile number of their choice between 11-13 digits.

The same SMS is this time sent to the processed number (i.e. the one just entered), and the recording is played.


SMS

Benefits

Results

With both the automated SMS routes, the customer has been directed to another, more efficient, service, far quicker than it would take an agent to find their account details. The benefits of this are clear:

• Better CX: the customer’s query is solved as soon as possible by a smooth omnichannel journey. Two automated services join up seamlessly to provide the information they need.

• No waiting: there is no need to wait for any of the options whilst on hold, stuck in a low information channel whilst listening to the dreaded waiting muzak. The customer can be sure that their problem will be solved. No time-wasting.

• Cost-effective: every call bridged to a contact center agent costs the contact center far more than an SMS. Furthermore, operational expenditure has been slashed, as the number of agents required to handle the decreased traffic has fallen.

When it comes to the business application potential of an automated SMS service, the openness and flexibility of the babelforce platform enables a creative service. If a contact center wants to expand their SMS support in the future, it only takes a couple of extra triggers and applications to offer instructional messages or personalized support.

8%reduction in bridged

self-service calls

€30,000saved from total expenditure (p/a)

The proportion of self-service calls bridged to the contact center - i.e. calls which can be solved quicker by the online help center or account, but which are put through to agents - drops significantly.

The 8% drop in the proportion of these calls translates to a big saving in the overall cost-per minute as more calls are resolved quicker and without reaching the agent queue.

Fig. 3


Scenario 2: IVR

Another scenario we see frequently is where IVR automation can bring significant business benefits. In our example, automations are applied to three main service areas offered by a medium-sized contact center:

Service selection

Alternative services

Waiting experience

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IVRArea 1: Service selection

Challenge

The difficulty here lies in presenting to customers different service types:

• Information provided by recorded messages (‘prompts’)

• Self-service options, such as automated SMS options as seen above

• Voice service - agent interaction

The babelforce solution

With babelforce IVR, you can create any flow. This means that the customer experience can be optimized using a flexible structure of linked applications. The user (contact center manager) configures the platform to present prompts and menu options in whatever order they wish, then link these menu applications together.

The contact center in question has 3 different automated SMS applications, 2 categories of informative prompts, as well as an agent queue to take voice calls. These service types are ordered into an intial three-part menu, followed by the further applications or menus for each:

Benefits

• Time is money: The average time-to-resolution per call metric is reduced through efficient categorization of the service types. This ultimately saves on operational expenditure and improves the customer experience.

• Flexibility & control: the business user has the ability to edit and add services/menus at any time, giving them the ability to constantly update their support in line with the evolution of their business needs.


IVRArea 2: Alternative service

Challenge

This aspect of the service covers calls which for operational reasons cannot be taken by an agent. Optimizing it is essential to improve the customer experience when this happens for whatever reason. The following scenarios cover the vast majority of such occurences:

• Agents not available: service is live, but for whatever reason there are no agents available to deal with the call.

• Out-of-hours: no agents are enabled because calls are being made outside the business hours of the contact center.

• Non-service day: no agents are enabled because calls are being made on a holiday or planned non-service day.


The key to optimizing the customer experience here is accurate data on availability and call attributes. Even though there is no agent to take a call, the caller must be given suitable options and the outcomes must be processed correctly in your contact center.

The platform user configures an IVR menu to which a call is routed if any of the above conditions are met. This menu offers the customer the automated SMS options seen above, but also the options of receiving a call-back or leaving a voicemail message:

Benefits

• 24/7 service: Bottlenecks in the availability of the right agent skill sets are inevitable in any contact center. Besides that you’ve got out-of-hours queries to deal with. The babelforce platform never sleeps and can smooth out the peaks in calls and the troughs in availability for you.

• Omnichannel: The possibilities for this kind of automation are as broad as the scope of the business roadmap behind it. This contact center could expand the alternative services further in order to join up with the in-hours service, offering informative support prompts, payment options, etc.


IVRArea 3: Waiting experience

Challenge

This is a challenge fundamental to the customer experience: how to minimize the waiting time of a call. The contact center suffers from long waiting times, as customers are stuck in a queue, not knowing when their issue will be addressed.

At the moment there is no choice: customers remain in a low-information channel for as long as it takes, whilst the music loops. Their choice is wait, or hang up. Worst of all, they often do both…


The flexibility of the platform allows users to introduce choice into the process. An IVR menu is inserted into the call waiting experience, which breaks up the monotony after a defined amount of time. This time it simply offers the standard alternative services without any automated self-service options.

It is often better to let a customer decide whether to wait or not. If they decide to, they are given the option to remain in the queue to speak with an agent. If not, there must be an additional channel through which the query can reach support agents: call-back, or voicemail.

Benefits

• No nonsense CX: Picture this. You’re waiting at the post office, but instead of standing in line you are asked to sit in a dark room listening to elevator music, whilst an unknown number of people are served before you. It’s ridiculous, but this is the process a lot of phone services still put customers through. An intelligent waiting experience, normally reserved for enterprise solutions, is now available to SMBs, fully customizable out of the box.

• No pain: waiting on hold is the number one pain point with customer service interactions. It is the enemy. The babelforce platform gives you the tools to combat it, all whilst saving you resources.


IN BRIEFAutomated services optimize your support processes. They reduce hold and optimize traffic coming into your contact center, saving resources and making huge improvements to the customer experience. The babelforce platform comes ready to easily implement SMS and IVR services. Build intelligent call handling flows and adapt them any time, saving you the time and money to do what you do best.


About babelforce: babelforce offers the most powerful and flexible cloud call & contact center. We have customers across the world using our global IP telephony infrastructure and multi-carrier telecommunications platform. The babelforce platform is revolutionizing how telephones work with the rest of your business solutions. We make it possible to integrate phones with everything and allow your people to work on any device. You can create a call center, a PBX, a unified communications solution - anything you need to do with telephony you can do with the platform.

William Connor Pierce Buckley

Writing:

babelforce GmbH - Karl-Marx-Allee 79 - 10243 Berlin - Germany - Registration - Amtsgericht Berlin Charlottenburg - HRB 150717 B Phone +49.30.920 373 300 - Fax +49.30.920 373 301 - Email [email protected] - Web www.babelforce.com

automating sms and ivr | babelforce insight

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