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Why delivering the right customer experience means looking at every channelThe effective management of omni-channel communications is key to the delivery of a complete customer experience

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Contents

Summary .........................................................................................................................................................................3

Recommendations ........................................................................................................................................................5

Your clients have to get to grips with customer experience ..............................................................................6

Different demographics prefer different communications channels ...............................................................9

Call management is not just about regulatory compliance ............................................................................ 11

Case Study: Dorset HealthCare................................................................................................................................ 13

Choose a partner that offers commitment, transparency and a strong cultural fit ................................. 15

Appendix ....................................................................................................................................................................... 18


Summary

CatalystCustomer experience management is rightly seen by many organizations as a strategic issue. In the digital domain, organizations have a rich set of tools and techniques to effectively monitor, analyze, and improve the digital experience that their customers enjoy. But while on the one hand, the state of the art in digital experience management continues to evolve, on the other, organizations are still struggling to effectively monitor, analyze, and improve the offline (“analogue”) experience of their customers.

This creates a significant opportunity for organizations that help their clients deliver customer experience to provide them with a solution that supports every engagement channel.

Ovum viewOver the past few years, the number of technologies and techniques that help organizations to more effectively manage the digital interactions they have with customers has exploded. Organizations can track, trace, and monitor their digital channels using sophisticated analytics platforms. They can also actively support customers through co-browsing and real-time chat and can market-test planned enhancements using techniques such as A/B testing. But when it comes to the non-digital channels that still play a hugely important role in driving customer satisfaction, the state of the art lags significantly behind.

Organizations that operate call centers can choose from a wide array of sophisticated call management solutions. These solutions are principally designed with throughput and compliance in mind rather than offering an active way of measuring and improving the quality of the caller experience. Of course, call centers are only one point of voice interaction. Many sales

organizations depend on mobile phones as their primary voice communication channel, and few organizations are effectively monitoring but managing mobile communications. Their ability to ensure the quality of these interactions is therefore limited

If you are a provider of communications services, this represents a significant opportunity. You can help your customers deliver a more holistic customer experience by helping them to effectively manage and monitor their voice and non-voice communications.

The key lies in helping your clients to look beyond “compliance” and working with them to apply call management to the challenge of providing their customers with a more integrated, efficient, and more satisfying experience.


Key Messages > Your clients are beginning

to get to grips with customer experience and you can help them.

> Call management is not just about regulatory compliance.

> Effective call management should be a key part of your customer experience strategy.

> Different demographics prefer different communications channels.

> Choose a supplier that offers integration, flexibility, and partnership opportunities.


Recommendations

Omni-channel means “every channel”When creating an “omni-channel” strategy, many organizations focus the greatest proportion of their effort on creating the best online experience for their customers. In many cases, the call center is seen as a separate function, despite the fact that in certain sectors and among some key customer segments, the “voice” channel remains hugely important.

When setting out to deliver a better customer experience, organizations have to look across every channel that their customers use to engage with them and work to deliver a consistent and integrated experience across each of these channels.

Help your customers think beyond “compliance”Call management technology, particularly call recording functionality, is very strongly linked to regulatory compliance. Effective call management also brings other benefits, so customers need to look beyond compliance. They also need to ensure that their employees have the skills they need to support their customers as well as taking steps to guarantee that they’re complying with their industry’s regulations and best practice.

As your customers become increasingly mobile, the ability to help them support their employees, whether they are based in an office or call center, or whether they’re mobile users, means that they can do a better job of servicing and serving their customers.

Your customers are struggling to deliver a consistent experience with an increasingly mobile workforceThe challenge of call management in an environment where everyone works in the same office is trivial by comparison to the issues faced by the growing number of increasingly geographically dispersed organizations that operate today.

The growth in the number of people who work flexibly, move between different locations, or who are completely mobile, means that traditional approaches to call management that assume that everyone will always be at the right place at the right time (and in the same place every time) no longer offer an effective solution. You should redouble your efforts to work with your clients to explore the way their workforce is changing and the way in which call management can help teams to stay in touch, collaborate, and work effectively.

Choose a “partner” over a “supplier”When considering a potential technology, make sure you talk to existing customers and partners to get a sense for how willing the provider is to work with partners. Not just when it comes to deploying the solution, but also in ensuring that the end-user organizations get the highest possible value out of it.


Customers are no longer following the rules. Whereas in the old days, customers took an orderly route through a predictable sales cycle, they’re now taking control of the process themselves and they expect the organizations they buy products and services from to adapt to this change.

Your clients have to get to grips with customer experience

FIGURE 1: CUSTOMERS ARE TAKING CONTROL

Over 60% of organizations identify changing customer behavior and competitor disruption as key challenges. Over half also report that channel disruption makes it harder for them to manage their relationships with customers.

The competitive threats faced by established businesses largely come from organizations that are better able to deploy and use technology in order to deliver a more integrated, friction-free, and consistent customer experience.

45% 50% 55% 60% 65%

Channel Disruption

Changing Customer behaviours

Competitor Disruption

Key challenges to managing the customer relationship

Source: PwC CEO Survey 2014


FIGURE 2: AVERAGE TIME SPENT IN THE S&P500 LIST (YEARS)

Your clients are beginning to recognize the challengeThis change in the competitive and market landscape isn’t just an inconvenience. For many organizations, it forms the basis of what will become, if left unaddressed, an existential crisis.

The ability to adapt to changing customer demands, and rapidly rising expectations of service will be a critical factor in determining the success or failure of many organizations.

The impact of this evolution is already being felt. The average lifespan of an organization’s inclusion in the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index has plummeted from over 60 years in the 1950s to less than 15 years today. In the future, this lifespan is expected to continue its decline as more agile and customer-centric organizations enter the market.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

1958 2011 2025 2030

YEAR

S

Source: S&P 500


The voice channel is still a key component of customer experienceWhile many organizations are rightly enthusiastic about the digital experience they offer clients, they often neglect the “non-digital” channels their customers use to interact with them. The answer is not, of course, to de-emphasize digital, but instead to work on delivering a coherent customer experience strategy that is integrated across every channel. “Omni channel” doesn’t mean support for Chrome, Explorer, Firefox, and Safari, it means support for digital, in-person, and voice.

FIGURE 4: THREE CORE ELEMENTS THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE BUSINESSES

DIGI

TATT

L IN PERSON

VOICE

CUSTOMEREXPERIENCECUSTOMER

EXPERIENCE

DIGI

TA

L IN PERSON

VOICE

Source: Ovum

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

Customer experience is becoming a key priorityThe number of enterprises that are implementing customer experience improvement programs has risen steadily over the past decade. Part enabled by technology and part driven by

changing customer expectations of service, close to 50% of organizations list “improving customer experience” as one of their top three priorities for 2016.

FIGURE 3 : CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE IS A KEY PRIORITY FOR NEARLY HALF OF ALL BUSINESSES

Top priority Second priority Third priority

Source: Ovum ICT Enterprise Insights


Different demographics prefer different communications channels

FIGURE 5: PREFERENCES FOR PHONE COMMUNICATIONS OVER WEB CHAT

Digital interaction tools such as live chat are growing in acceptance, but research into customer preferences consistently highlight very marked differences in acceptance by age.

People aged between 18 and 34 are twice as likely to be users of live chat than their 55+ counterparts.

When it comes to the nature of the question or issue that customers have, research consistently indicates that for simple queries, digital channels often suffice. For more complex interactions such

as financial questions or health-related queries, the preference is reversed with more than twice the number of customers preferring a voice interaction over digital.

If your clients serve a customer base that spans a diverse demographic range, especially if they need to help clients with complex or personal matters, then voice-based communications need to play a key part in their engagement processes.

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

55+

36 – 55

26 – 35

18 – 25

Preference for web chat vs. phone for financial queries Web chat Phone

Source: The Impact of Demographics on Live Chat Customer Service (Craig Borowski)


In some domains and markets, digital interaction has eclipsed other communications channels, largely driven by customer demand and their expectations of service.

The digitally native generations (Generation Y and Millennials) place high importance on digital channels and place far less importance on voice or face-to-face interactions for many of the services they use. However, even within the digitally native population, there are some interactions (typically complex or personal transactions) where even the digitally savvy prefer a voice or face to face interaction.


Call management is not just about regulatory compliance

Call recording was born out of financial services regulationThe recording of mobile communications (voice calls and SMS text messages) became a regulatory requirement for financial services institutions trading in the UK capital markets in November 2011. A similar regulatory requirement is expected for all other countries in the European Union as a result of the second version of the Market in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II).

In practice, the actual deployment of recording capabilities has been slow in the UK, with the most realistic estimates suggesting that only somewhere between one-third and two-thirds of the mobile phones covered by the 2011 regulation are currently being recorded. For the rest, the situation is almost certainly that the employer is managing by policy, which means they have effectively banned the use of mobiles, leaving the responsibility of complying with the ban to the individual trader.

The association of call management and recording with “compliance” misses a crucial point, however. Call management and recording need not only be about ticking a regulatory box, but can also be used to deliver the best possible level of customer service.

Help your clients view effective call management as a key part of their customer experience strategyEffective call management centers on reducing the friction involved in connecting customers to employees, and employees to colleagues. Not so long ago, when employees generally came into the office every day and sat at the same desk, the challenge of connecting them was relatively simple. Today, however, an increasing proportion of the workforce is mobile. More importantly, the segment of the workforce that is mobile is often made up of the people who need to interact most often with the end customer. Mobile workers in many organizations often work in sales or service functions, both of which are fundamental to customer experience. So the ability to be able to reach these mobile employees and engage them in customer communications in a seamless and cost effective way is essential.


Holistic customer experience management means paying attention to digital, voice, and in-person interactions

Of course, digital channels are important and its certainly true that many businesses regard their digital presence as the primary channel through which their customers choose to contact them. However, a growing number are recognizing that it is important not to neglect the other ways in which customers want to interact with them.

Customer experience management should span digital, voice and in-person interactions, with the goal of providing a consistent, high-quality experience across all of these interaction types. It is also important to remind your customers that their employees are an intrinsic part of the customer experience, so providing them with the tools that they need to engage with customers and collaborate with colleagues also plays a fundamental role in the delivery of an excellent customer experience.


Case Study: Dorset HealthCare

In July 2011, Dorset HealthCare (originally a Mental Health Trust) merged with Dorset Community Health Services (the provider arm of Dorset PCT). As a result, the trust grew by 500% and needed to enable a whole new group of people to communicate and collaborate in order to deliver a wider range of services from an increased number of locations.

The former trust was already making extensive use of call management technology including voicemail, fax mail, and inbound call management solutions. With cost containment a huge priority within the health service, the organization plans to roll out the solution in key domains across the enlarged organization as budgets allow.

> The SolutionDorset HealthCare uses call management technology provided by TeleWare in a number of domains spanning the IT function and clinical services.

The call management solution now enables more than 400 of the trust’s employees to be directly contactable anywhere at any time. The system allows employees to make themselves immediately available or, if they can’t answer, to redirect specific calls to other colleagues. A voicemail service provides employees with the ability to visually manage voicemail messages, prioritize them, and receive email notifications when they receive a message.

The trust deployed an inbound call management solution that enabled it to take control of its communications experience and improve its inbound call distribution, ensuring that calls could be answered more effectively. This reduced both waiting times and abandoned calls. The ability to manage and optimize communications means that the trust has been able to deliver a better experience for both patients and employees. The trust is also planning to make use of the solution’s contact center platform.

The trust has also trialed Mobile Call Recording for health visitors and child

protection workers. The ability to record mobile calls which can then be stored and played back has the potential to help healthcare professionals in safeguarding vulnerable adults and children.

> The benefitsThe primary benefit of the solution lies in the effective automation of call handling, ensuring that patients are quickly and reliably connected to the right person. The routing of calls can be complex, and it needs to support geographically dispersed clinicians and provide automatic call handling both within and outside normal operating hours.

The current solution brings benefits to both the employees of the trust and the users of the trust’s services. Employees benefit in terms of their ability to stay in touch with colleagues and patients, while patients benefit in terms of their ability to be put in touch with the right person more quickly and reliably.

The integration of the solution has also helped the trust to avoid costs, because by combining a diverse set of features within a single platform, the trust doesn’t need to source multiple separate solutions from different suppliers.


The trust uses TeleWare’s call management platform, citing a combination of value for money, a rich feature set, and a strong partnership-oriented relationship as key factors in its ongoing relationship with TeleWare.

Peter Kelsall, Dorset Healthcare’s head of IT operations, has the following advice for organizations that are looking at call management technology.

> Choose a solution that makes the lives of both customers and employees easier.

> Flexibility and ease of use are important considerations when encouraging employees to embrace a call management solution.

> Work with a supplier that is willing to work with you because a sense of partnership is important.

> Once a relationship is established, work with your provider to identify other ways the technology can help your organization.

> When considering a provider, visit one of their existing customers to see the solution in action.


Choose a partner that offers commitment, transparency, and a strong cultural fit

We spoke with Kerry Belcher, head of operations at Onsite Connect, about her experience of partnership, particularly in the context of one of their major clients. Onsite Connect has been providing communication services to a major chain of garden centers for several years. The relationship with TeleWare has been a key factor in

the success of this relationship, both in supporting the day-to-day operation of the contract and in developing new solutions for the client.

Belcher’s experience has given her a clear idea of what it takes to build the right partnership and what attributes are important in a potential partner.

The partnership between Onsite Connect and TeleWareThe partnership between Onsite Connect and TeleWare began over seven years ago, when Onsite Connect chose TeleWare’s technology to provide communications services to a large chain of garden centers. The customer needed a communications solution that would provide it with flexibility, the ability to respond effectively to internal and inbound enquiries and to more effectively manage telecommunications costs.

TeleWare was initially selected on the basis of the flexibility and completeness of its solution. When Onsite Connect reviewed the technical options that were available, it became clear that other solutions would require it to engage with multiple providers in order to deliver the same functionality that TeleWare offered. This was reinforced by the fact that TeleWare was willing to work with Onsite Connect’s engineers

and with the client to build a tailored solution that incorporated some bespoke development to deliver a solution that was the best possible fit for the client. This flexibility was important to Onsite Connect because it meant that the client wasn’t forced to accept a monolithic package that meant it was paying for functionality it didn’t require.

Over the course of the relationship, the partnership has evolved beyond the delivery technology, and Belcher regards the TeleWare staff she works with as an extension of her own team.

Many organizations claim to have a strong and positive approach to partnerships, and some have invested significantly in developing sophisticated partnership programs. In practice however, the secret to effective partnership lies in how the partnership works on a practical day-to-day basis, rather than the creation of partner portals or glossy collateral.


Culture, commitment, and transparency are key ingredients to partnership

While it may seem unusual to talk about “chemistry” in the context of a business relationship, Belcher emphasizes the importance of finding a partner that shares the same values. Cultural fit is one of the foundations of an effective partnership, because if the two organizations aren’t aligned at this level, the partnership is unlikely to develop.

Having established that the organizations are compatible in terms of culture, the next element to consider is commitment. Commitment is fundamentally a measure of the partner’s willingness to invest time and effort in the relationship, and it manifests itself most acutely in the way the partner responds when something goes wrong. Belcher cited a fairly recent example when an outage on a Saturday morning meant that the communications service was unavailable for a short period of time. The service was brought back online in a few minutes as a result of the direct collaboration between engineers at Onsite Connect and TeleWare. Given the severity of the outage, the standard support process was bypassed so that key staff could get to work on the solution as quickly as possible.

Transparency is also crucial according to Belcher. The willingness of both parties to share their plans and to be willing to work together in developing those plans is one of the hallmarks of an effective partnership. Transparency not only helps to build trust, but also helps both parties plan more effectively.

In all three of these elements, it is important to remember that both parties have to bring their share to the table. Onsite Connect has also invested in making the relationship work by sharing its plans, spending time with at TeleWare’s offices to discuss client requirements, and ensuring its team are fully up-to-date and trained on TeleWare’s offering.

Effective partnerships play a role throughout the whole engagement cycleOne of the key distinctions between a “supplier” and a “partner” lies in whether they will actually help you make the sale. TeleWare staff regularly join those of Onsite Connect’s at client meetings, throughout every phase of the engagement cycle. At the proposal stage, the TeleWare team works

with Onsite Connect to support it in the bidding process. As the agreement proceeds, TeleWare engineers form part of the team that supports the client, identifies new opportunities and helps ensure that the service is delivered effectively.


ConclusionBuilding an effective partnership takes work on both sides, and the most effective partnerships are those that are built around shared values, commitment, and transparency. Ultimately, the success of this partnership is a result of the following factors:

> A good technical proposition

> A willingness on the part of the partner to engage throughout the process

> A shared commitment to the customer

> Cultural fit and shared values

The strongest partnerships involve co-developmentAnother factor that Belcher highlights in the context of Onsite Connect’s relationship with TeleWare is the access she has to the TeleWare Research and Development team. The fact that Onsite Connect has access to the people who are building TeleWare’s next generation of products means that she can contribute to the process and participate in the creation of development priorities.

The benefitsFrom the perspective of Onsite Connect, the benefits are clear. As a result of its partnership with TeleWare, it is able to deliver a better solution to customers. In addition, when it deploys TeleWare’s technology, it has confidence that it will receive the support it needs to deliver on the promises it has made to the customer.

TeleWare benefits as well, by having a partner that is willing to engage with it on R&D and in helping it develop its offering.

Crucially, the customer benefits as well, by having access to a team that is willing to deliver a solution that is tightly mapped to its needs, and will continue to evolve as these needs change.


Appendix

Further reading

> MNOs enter mobile call recording market IT0022-000276 (December 2014)

> Vodafone In-Network Call Recording IT0022-000049 (May 2014)

> On the Radar: Citicom EI003-000022 (February 2014)

> Mobile Communications Recording in the Financial Markets: a Global Update EI003-000016 (December 2013)

> Mobile Recording in the Financial Sector: an Update IT001-000476 (February 2013)

> Mobile Communications Recording in the Financial Markets OI00129-003 (June 2011)

AuthorGary Barnett, Chief Analyst, Software [email protected]

Ovum ConsultingWe hope that this analysis will help you make informed and imaginative business decisions. If you have further requirements, Ovum’s consulting team may be able to help you. For more information about Ovum’s consulting capabilities, please contact us directly at [email protected].

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