customer success uberglobal - liveperson5 customer success uberglobal 2014 liveperson, inc....

2014

CUSTOMER SUCCESS

UberGlobalEnhancing Support and Sales with Personalized Engagement

© 2014 LivePerson, Inc. 2

CUSTOMER SUCCESS UberGlobal

Leading Australian cloud services provider UberGlobal needed an effective, efficient way to scale Technical Support Services while driving incremental sales for its offerings. The company turned to LivePerson about a year ago, deploying a digital engagement

solution that includes proactive live chat and content targeting. The company is quite pleased with the

results: 36 percent of calls are being deflected to live chat with an average time to resolution of three

minutes. In addition to the customer service benefits, UberGlobal is seeing e-commerce benefits as well,

including a 23 percent of sales assisted by live chat. Since many of these sales are incremental, this is new

revenue for UberGlobal.

From his Canberra, Australia bedroom in 2002, 14-year-old Michael McGoogan founded McGooHQ, a

reseller of U.S.-based hosting services. By 2005, the company had grown to become AussieHQ, one of

Australia’s fastest-growing Web service providers. Today, the company is called UberGlobal, and it is the

country’s third-largest cloud services provider by market share.

One factor in the company’s rapid growth has been its ability to respond nimbly to market trends. “When

I joined the company five years ago, we provided hosting and services using physical, dedicated servers,”

recalls Daniel Muller, deputy operations manager at UberGlobal. “But four years ago, management realized

that physical server hosting was coming to an end and made the decision to move everything into the

cloud. That was definitely the right move for our customers.” The company now offers almost anything a

business might need in terms of IT infrastructure—regardless of company size—through a

cloud-based platform.

Overview

UberGlobal is Australia’s

third largest cloud services

provider by market share.

Founded in 2002 by 14 year

old Michael McGoogan, the

company serves 110,000

customers ranging from

small businesses to

large enterprises.

Business results

Customer Experience

75% customer satisfaction

rate for live chat channel

Technical Support

3-minute average time

to resolution for technical

support issues, compared

with 5 minutes by phone

Ability of phone agents to

assist via mobile device for

after-hours deployments

Operational Efficiency

36% deflection of phone

support to live chat (from

5,500 to 3,500 calls

per month)

Estimated 2 FTE cost savings

for phone support agents

via live chat

95% reduction in time to

resolution for certain cases

via desktop sharing feature

Sales Results

23% of total sales assisted

by live chat, much of it

incremental revenue

© 2014 LivePerson, Inc. 3


The need to deliver effective serviceThis strategy drove further growth in the company, and Muller’s technical support team eventually

became inundated with phone calls. “The company was growing, and the percentage of inquiries that

needed real-time engagement rather than just a support ticket was increasing,” he remembers.

When the percentage of inquiries handled by phone rather than support ticket hit 50 percent, Muller

knew that something had to be done. “I put together a business case, and management approved the

hire of four agents that would be dedicated to a new live chat channel,” he explains.

Deploying a digital engagement solutionThis strategy drove further growth in the company, and Muller’s technical support team eventually

became inundated with phone calls. “The company was growing, and the percentage of inquiries that

needed real-time engagement rather than just a support ticket was increasing,” he remembers.

When he heard that Muller was going to deploy a live chat solution, Business Development Manager

Dean Milton requested that sales included in the deployment. “I saw a lot of potential in live chat for lead

generation and nurturing, so I requested a license for our team,” he explains. “And we discussed what

features would be helpful to make live chat into a sales tool.”

Muller conducted a thorough search for a solution, and LivePerson’s LiveEngage platform quickly rose to

the top of the list. “They’re one of the larger players in the industry, and they offer a really good platform

for both sales and service,” Muller relates. “You can use proactive chat, predictive targeting, and marketing

campaigns. The logging is excellent so we can monitor agents’ workloads, and the API access is excellent for

integrating LivePerson into our existing system. There were all sorts of features that just weren’t available

anywhere else.”

With these requirements in mind, UberGlobal selected LivePerson. The solution went live a year ago,

starting with three concurrent agent licenses—two for the support team and one for sales.

Increasing effectiveness for technical supportStatic Click-to-Chat buttons are now prominently placed in UberGlobal’s knowledge base and in the client

management portal that UberGlobal customers use every day to manage their cloud solutions.

“We also have a Click-to-Chat link in the footer of our automated email that summarizes the resolution of a

support ticket, in the event that a customer has an additional question,” Muller explains. “The live chat agent

can see when an inquiry comes in via email link and can pull up the relevant ticket for context.”

Live chat agents can immediately see what customers see on their screens, and agents can handle up to three

conversations at a time.– Daniel Muller, Deputy Operations Manager, UberGlobal

The Challenges • Reduce technical

support costs with more

efficient channel

• Drive incremental revenue

via digital engagement

with sales contacts

• Enable quick answers to

questions during overnight

IT maintenance

The SolutionEngagement Model:

Live chat for sales and

technical support

Under the Hood:

LiveEngage platform with

static and proactive live chat,

Predictive Targeting,

content targeting, and

desktop sharing

LivePerson Customer Success:

Deployment assistance

and ongoing consultation

and scorecards

4


© 2014 LivePerson, Inc.

The LiveEngage platform enables agents to see the Web page a customer is looking at during a live chat conversation, which saves time in

resolving an issue. And when necessary, agents are able to use the desktop sharing feature in the LiveEngage platform to remotely make

adjustments to a customer’s PC. “We find that really handy for setting up things like email clients,” Muller notes. “I’ve seen what would have

been a 40-minute support call resolved in two minutes through a remote desktop session.”

Providing support after hoursThe regular hours of the live chat channel for customer support are from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Sydney time on weekdays, but most changes

made to IT environments occur on nights and weekends. As a result, agents assisting with these maintenance efforts often use the LiveEngage

platform after hours to provide help as needed to technicians at the customer site.

When an UberGlobal shift change occurs during a maintenance project, customers can rest assured that they will not have to repeat their

entire situation to the new person. “Incoming agents can look at the live chat transcripts from earlier in the evening to get context on what is

happening at a customer site,” Muller notes.

Improving sales through digital engagementOn the sales side, Milton’s team uses the LiveEngage platform proactively to drive revenue for UberGlobal. “Of our six sales professionals, two are

general sales reps who work leads from the office,” he explains. “They staff live chat lines during business hours for all of Australia’s time zones.” In

addition to the Click-to-Chat buttons on UberGlobal’s support-related pages, Click-to-Chat buttons can be found on various product pages. And

proactive live chat invitations are extended to high-value visitors based on their behavior—but only when the LiveEngage platform detects that

an agent is available.

Targeting for the proactive invitations is currently rules-based, but Milton’s team plans to roll out Predictive Targeting in July 2014. “Predictive

Targeting will help us avoid managing the rules, and enable us to extend a live chat invitation at the precise time when it’s most likely to be

effective based on the most up-to-date trend data,” Milton relates. “IT professionals tend to want to be left alone until they’re ready to engage,

so this tool helps us to engage in a way that seems less intrusive.”

Milton’s team also uses the content targeting tool in the LiveEngage platform to push offers and other marketing materials to select visitors.

“We target visitors based on the particular page they’re on,” Milton explains. “We have some products that complement each other such as

our hosted Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync offerings. As a result, when a visitor is browsing on the Exchange page, we might send a

pop-up telling them about a promotion we’re running with SharePoint or Lync. This results in an upsell opportunity for us, and gives

customers a chance to get what they really need.”

Benefiting from ongoing help and adviceUberGlobal’s LivePerson Customer Success manager has been working with Muller and Milton from day one. “He made sure our initial

deployment was successful, but he has been especially valuable as an ongoing advisor,” Milton contends. “He explained the benefits of

Predictive Targeting and helped us design a strategy for using the content targeting tool.” In the next few months, UberGlobal plans to work

with the Customer Success manager to identify Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the digital engagement program that will be tracked

in the next financial year, which begins on July 1.

Predictive Targeting enables us to extend a live chat invitation at the precise time when it’s most likely to be effective.

– Dean Milton, Business Development Manager, UberGlobal

5



Impressive results for technical supportUberGlobal’s Technical Support Services team currently fields 2,000 live chat conversations monthly, and all of those conversations represent

deflections from phone support. “Phone support inquiries have gone down from 5,500 to 3,500 per month—a 36 percent reduction,” Muller

reports. As live chat volume has increased, Muller has added new concurrent agents to the deployment, and the current count is five for support

and one for sales.

This call deflection rate represents significant cost savings for the company, as live chat requires much less staff time per inquiry. “Live chat

agents can immediately see what customers see on their screens, and agents can handle up to three live chat conversations at a time,” he says.

“I’m quite confident that had we not implemented live chat, we would have needed to add six new phone service agents by now, compared with

our four live chat agents.”

UberGlobal’s customer base seems to really like the availability of live chat, and the channel receives a 75 percent customer satisfaction rate in

exit surveys. “Customers who need support appreciate the ease with which they can access the Click-to-Chat button from the customer control

panel,” Muller describes.

Average resolution time for support issues is around three minutes for the live chat channel, compared with five minutes by phone. “The average

phone call time has actually been increasing,” Muller notes. “We see that as a good thing, as we know that the basic questions are being covered

by live chat now, leaving the more complex questions for phone agents. And while customers often want to stay on the line with a phone agent

until every issue is resolved, they feel comfortable ending a live chat session and starting another one if needed.”

Incremental revenue through chat-assisted salesOn the sales side, live chat-assisted sales now account for 23 percent of UberGlobal’s sales. While the average order value (AOV) of these

transactions is lower than with phone sales, Milton’s analysis shows that much of it is incremental revenue for UberGlobal. “Without live chat,

we probably would not have closed many of these sales, and we rely on sales of all sizes to run a successful business,” he asserts. The content

targeting tool also brings incremental revenue for UberGlobal, particularly through cross-sell and upsell opportunities.

Incremental revenue through chat-assisted salesOn the sales side, live chat-assisted sales now account for 23 percent of UberGlobal’s sales. While the average order value (AOV) of these

transactions is lower than with phone sales, Milton’s analysis shows that much of it is incremental revenue for UberGlobal. “Without live chat,

we probably would not have closed many of these sales, and we rely on sales of all sizes to run a successful business,” he asserts. The content

targeting tool also brings incremental revenue for UberGlobal, particularly through cross-sell and upsell opportunities.

Exciting future plansAs live chat conversations continue to grow, Muller is making plans to cross-train his entire Technical Support Services team so that all of them

can be deployed to live chat or phone support as needed. “We are thinking that it might be good for agents to work part of the day on phones

and part on chat,” Muller explains.

And although most customers are at their desktops or laptops when they contact the support team, Muller is looking into whether LivePerson’s

mobile Click-to-Chat tool might be useful for customers. “Some technicians might need help when something comes up over lunch hour, for

example,” he observes.

6



About LivePersonLivePerson, Inc. (NASDAQ: LPSN) offers a cloud-based platform that enables businesses to proactively connect in real-time with their customers via chat, voice, and content delivery at the right time, through the right channel, including websites, social media, and mobile devices. This “intelligent engagement” is driven by real-time behavioral analytics, producing connections based on a true understanding of business objectives and customer needs. LivePerson is headquartered in New York City with offices in San Francisco, Atlanta, Tel Aviv, London, Amsterdam, and Melbourne.

Contact

LivePerson, Inc. T: 212.991.1794

475 Tenth Ave F: 212.609.4233

5th Floor [email protected]

New York, NY 10018 www.liveperson.com

Another important near-term project is further integrating the LiveEngage platform with UberGlobal’s Microsoft Dynamics CRM system and

its Parallels Automation cloud service delivery platform. “When a client initiates a live chat conversation, we would like our agents to have the

background information about their deployment and sales history at their fingertips,” Muller explains. “Our Customer Success manager has

already given us some really good ideas about how to make that happen.”

Milton’s sales team is also evaluating whether the enrichment analytics tools in the LiveEngage platform, or even the advanced analysis tools in

LivePerson Insights, would be able to help the company’s efforts at search engine optimization. “We recently engaged with a Web development

company to work with our internal team to start optimizing key words on the website,” he reports. “The ultimate result will be a fully refreshed

website, and we believe that analysis of live chat conversations may make positive contributions to the project.”

An asset for the companyAfter a year of digital engagement with LivePerson, Muller and Milton have no regrets. “I think most people are nervous about deploying

something like live chat, because they want to have something that makes money rather than costing money,” Muller observes. “Every aspect of

our experience with LivePerson has been positive. After just a year of use, the solution has easily been a net positive for our bottom line—both in

reducing the cost of support and increasing sales. You can’t ask for more than that.”

Milton’s team also uses the content targeting tool in the LiveEngage platform to push offers and other marketing materials to select visitors. “We

target visitors based on the particular page they’re on,” Milton explains. “We have some products that complement each other such as our hosted

Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync offerings. As a result, when a visitor is browsing on the Exchange page, we might send a pop-up telling

them about a promotion we’re running with SharePoint or Lync. This results in an upsell opportunity for us, and gives customers a chance to get

what they really need.”

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