West | Copyright 2017

Reasons Customers Call — and How to Reduce with SMS

Contact center agents are responsible for creating a good first impression every time they pick up the phone. That means it’s worth keeping a heavily staffed, well-paid contact center. Still, those calls cost time and money. Fortunately, there are a few options to reduce call volume and let agents focus on the most important matters.

Forrester estimates that a well-managed call center with 3,000 agents can field 50 calls per agent per day.1 The average call center representative earns $13.65 per hour, according to job search site Indeed.com, based on 159,000 relevant job postings,2 which means in an eight-hour workday, that call center is paying $327,600 per day to answer phone calls.

If those agents are helping solve complex customer concerns, then that’s money well spent. But according to research by Sabio and the Customer Contact Association, around one in four calls to inbound contact centers are unnecessary or avoidable.3 These calls often address common inquiries that could be easily preempted or automated, like help making or confirming a purchase, clarifying company terms and conditions or following up on an unresolved issue.

That means one-fourth of that call center’s expenses — nearly $82,000 a day — could be saved or redirected to more important calls with a digitally connected strategy. An interactive voice response (IVR) system can help by increasing automation and self-service, but there is another option. Reaching customers proactively has a greater impact on customer experience (CX), and it’s often the less expensive choice.

THE NEW CHANNEL OF CHOICE

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avoidablecosting$82K per day

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The best way to start being proactive is to reach customers on a device that’s already in their pocket: their mobile phone. Not only is it convenient, but it’s an increasingly popular channel.

Ed Thompson, Vice President and Distinguished Analyst at Gartner, said phone call interactions between customers and call centers are on the decline. While such interactions made up 35 percent of total customer-to-business interactions in 2016, he expects that number to fall to just 10 percent by 2020.4

Now, text messaging is becoming the primary way for organizations to engage customers with smartphones. Order tracking, appointment reminders, account confirmations and more are all possible with SMS (short message service).

Of course SMS isn’t the only option for proactive messages. Organizations have three ways to reach customers via mobile messaging:

1. SMS texting 2. In-app communications 3. Consumer messaging apps

Some consumer messaging apps include WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat and WeChat. These free apps use Wi-Fi or a smartphone’s data plan to send messages. In-app communications, on the other hand, feature notifications within an organization’s own mobile app. But there’s one caveat. They all require a download. And that extra step can be a huge hindrance to CX and adoption.

According to Gartner, 89 percent of adults in developed markets — specifically the U.S., U.K. and Australia — own a smartphone, and there are 5.5 billion monthly active SMS users around the world. By comparison, in-app services Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp each have 1 billion monthly active users.5

SMS requires no download and is available on nearly every mobile phone, helping it rise as the world’s new channel of choice. And it also creates opportunities to reduce call volume and meet customer expectations.

of adults in the U.S., U.K. and Australia own a smartphone.

89%

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4 Reasons Customers Call

These are four of the most common customer concerns we hear. In pages 5–11, see how SMS can be used in each case to craft a better CX.

"Why do I have to call in?"

"I just had a simple question."

"What's happening?"

"What else can you do for me?"

1

2

3

4

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Text messaging is used by more organizations to engage customers on their smartphones every year. At West, we’ve seen increased interest in SMS messaging, too. From 2016 to 2017, we’ve recorded a year-to-year increase in SMS traffic of 87 percent. By comparison, voice traffic has risen by only 5 percent, putting outbound SMS notifications on pace to take the top spot over voice notifications.

As text notifications become more common, customers will grow frustrated with brands who don’t have SMS solutions. It’s important to keep up with the pack amid the rapid adoption of new technologies. Ultimately, Gartner identifies four factors for determining which type of mobile messaging channel to offer an audience:

• The business goal for engaging with customers through mobile messaging

• Target audience compared to the audience of each channel

• The functionality of each channel as compared to others

• The desire to have a more personal relationship with customers and desirable features within each channel6

After deciding to include text messaging in the overall communication strategy, it is important to promote its availability and gain adoption. According to Salesforce, the top five reasons consumers opt in to a brand’s text messages are:

No need to visit a physical location or log into a

website or app 7

Being in the loop

More meaningful content

Coupons or deals

Personal alerts

“WHY DO I HAVE TO CALL IN?”1

77%

48%50%

33%31%

Opt-in Preferences. IMPROVE CX ELIMINATE FRUSTRATION

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As part of the adoption strategy, it’s important to offer preference management and make it easy for customers to say when, how often and on what channels they want to be contacted.

Getting opt-ins is just one piece of the puzzle. Ensure your communication provider has tools in place to confidently satisfy compliance requirements and support customers in line with industry best practices to maximize return. Improve CRM accuracy with deactivated number detection, opt-out mechanisms, wrong-number lists collected from customer service representatives and regular email and mail requests to get updated contact information.

Tools like these keep customer databases up-to-date, reducing risk of violating terms of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act — which prevents businesses from texting individuals without permission — and captures maximum revenue.

According to the Federal Communications Commission, over 36 million phone numbers are reassigned to another person each year.8 This number should be truly alarming for brands because they could believe they’re sending a text message to Brian, when in reality it is now being delivered to Maria who’s using Brian’s recycled phone number, leaving the brand in danger of receiving a hefty fine.

phone numbersareto another personeach year.

Over 36Mreassigned

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Texting has evolved beyond mere notifications. Modern-day SMS solutions empower self-service opportunities that cut costs and allow agents to focus on high-value and complex inquiries.

Today, Gartner estimates that 2 percent of all customer service inquiries are managed over mobile messaging. By 2019, they expect that inquiries received through consumer messaging apps alone will surpass such requests coming through social media.10

No one likes waiting on hold, especially when they know there’s a better option. SMS isn’t just a one-way street for companies to talk to their customers. It’s undergone an evolution to increase customer service options and engagement strategies:

According to CRM Magazine:

• 67% of customers prefer self-service as their channel for finding answers

• 91% of customers would use self-service if it were available

• 40% of customers who contact call centers only do so after they have tried to use self-service9

“I JUST HAD A SIMPLE QUESTION.”

Notify and remind customers of important information with outbound text alerts and updates. One-way texting is an automated solution that easily shares messages with targeted audiences or an organization’s entire customer base, like sharing coupons or promoting a weekend sale.

Virtual Customer Assistants (VCA) mark the most advanced option to date. VCAs are chatbots that use artificial intelligence to interpret requests and continually learn from every interaction. Chatbots and assistants may be complex to develop, but they simplify the solution, empower self-service and create exceptional CX through automated, intelligent interactions.

Customer-initiated texting adds complexity but raises customer experience by putting the power in the customer's hands. Instead of simply responding, a customer can start the conversation using a company’s toll-free number (1-800, 1-888, etc.), which eliminates the need for a separate, text-only number.

Engage and converse in two-way interactions using keywords or natural language, making it easy to self-serve by refilling prescriptions or paying a credit card bill. Or take it a step further with agent-assisted interactions, which allow customer service representatives to respond to multiple conversations at once with personalized answers.

Automation and Text Chat. EMPOWER SELF-SERVICE LOWER COSTS

Notify and Remind

Engage and Converse

Customer Initiated

Virtual Customer Assistant

2

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Gartner predicts that by 2022, 30 percent of customer service experiences will be handled by conversational agents, rising from 3 percent in 2017. As of 2017, 71 percent of smartphone users used a digital assistant once per day or several times a week.11

All these solutions allow CX professionals to achieve business goals and align mobile messaging channels to the preferences of their target audience.

The Evolution of Text Messaging

COMPLEXITY

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STO

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XP

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IEN

CE

Notify and Remind

Engage and Converse

Customer Initiated

Virtual Customer Assistant

Outbound SMS/text alerts, reminders and updates

Let your customers reply and have conversations

Let your customer start the conversation using your company's 1-800 number

Use AI to interpret requests and continuously learn from it at scale

of customers would use self-service if it was available.91%

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No matter how much time is spent planning, sometimes things just don’t go according to plan. Whether it’s a power outage, weather warning, medical alert or another emergency, failing to adequately communicate during emergencies means risking potentially irreversible damage to customer loyalty and the bottom line.

Luckily, addressing emergencies with proactive communication has the opposite effect. From utilities to pharmacies to cable providers, companies in all industries can increase customer satisfaction and cost savings by addressing concerns before customers even recognize a problem.

A study by J.D. Power found that 82 percent of utility customers prefer to be proactively contacted during outages with information and updates.12 It also cuts down on inbound call center traffic, so agents can focus on the most important calls and resources can be allocated to resolving the emergency.

But proactive messaging doesn’t have to be reserved for emergencies. It’s an effective tool to remind customers of appointments and payments, let them know their flight has been delayed or notify customers of a truck roll to repair an outage. J.D. Power conducted another study in the automotive repair industry, where it found 55 percent of customers whose service providers contact them by phone say they “definitely will” return for paid service.13

“WHAT’S HAPPENING?”Proactive Messaging. BUILD TRUST AVOID WASTING RESOURCES

In the automotive study, text messaging performed even better. Among those who received text message updates, the study found 67 percent “definitely will” return.

Despite the obvious potential for texting as a proactive communication channel, only 39 percent of marketers say they use SMS as a means to reach customers today, which Gartner suspects to be largely promotions and advertising based.14

of Gen Y customers(born 1977-1994)

of Gen X customers(born 1965-1976)

of Baby Boomers(born 1946-1964)

of Pre-boomers(born 1945 or earlier)

41% 25% 25% 10%

Texting is growing in popularity among all generations and is now the preferred channel of choice for:

According to J.D. Power, these numbers represent increases of between 3% and 6% in each generational category since 2015.15

3

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While SMS continues to cement its place as the nation’s channel of choice, the best communication strategy incorporates multiple channels, including voice and web solutions, to create multi-channel experiences.

In order to streamline operations and create cross-channel visibility, ensure customer data is shared from one channel to the next. Every channel has a role to play in a balanced communication strategy, so ask yourself a few important questions to provide the right experience on the right channel for every scenario. Begin with the 10 questions to the right:

“WHAT ELSE CAN YOU DO FOR ME?”

□ □ Are you preempting the need for customer service with proactive notifications such as voice, SMS/text or email reminders/alerts?

□ □ Do you empower your customers to interact according to their personal preferences by specifying channel, type of message, time of day, etc.?

□ □ Do your customer engagement strategies align with the overall business strategy?

□ □ Can you seamlessly pivot your strategies in parallel with an ever-changing compliance rulebook?

□ □ Do you honor customer data privacy with a focus on building trust, rather than simply covering legal risks?

□ □ Do you have customer consent to send proactive notifications?

□ □ Do you use business rules to exclude or include certain customers from one message or another for various business reasons?

□ □ Do you use advanced data science to predict intent and behavior?

□ □ Do you tailor communications to support more individualized customer conversations that take things like demographic information or historical behavior into account?

□ □ Do you have a proven system (checks and balances) in place to qualify and address unsatisfactory results?

Read through this checklist for 20 more questions to consider to ensure your proactive engagement strategy is creating the right CX.

CX Strategy. INCREASE LOYALTY DECREASE INEFFICIENCY

Y N Key questions to consider to provide the right CX

4

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Evaluate where you are today. A major mistake decision-makers commonly make is trying to incorporate the next big technology without any idea where their CX currently stands as it is. Avoid putting the cart before the horse and learn from the data currently at hand. Focus on current objectives and strategic positioning.

Get to know the customers. Customers expect their brands to recognize them. Create moments of delight by mapping customers’ journeys and listening to them on social media to develop an understanding of their attitudes, behaviors and triggers. Then, use business intelligence to develop a calculated communication strategy to close gaps.

Understand how customers interact. Are the interactions within their entire journey with a brand functional, accessible and enjoyable? A customer’s experience doesn’t end after a single conversation. Learn their preferred methods of communication and invest in a CX strategy that leverages and continually builds upon customer data to optimize interactions across multiple channels.

Look at metrics. Are they providing a full picture of what’s important to customers? Use business analytics to track average handle time, abandon rate, customer satisfaction ratings and descriptive metrics to lay the groundwork to understand customer behavior, predict intent and prescribe solutions.

All of these steps ensure an organization’s communication strategies provide maximum benefit to customers, making them more willing to self-serve and less likely to pick up the phone and ask for an agent.

Exceptional CX isn’t created with a single text message. It requires an iterative process that starts with connecting underlying CX technologies, enhancing them through continual optimization, then shifting to ongoing orchestration within a comprehensive CX ecosystem.

Even the most imaginative communication game plans are destined to fail if they lack a coherent CX strategy and the necessary resources it will take to execute. To sync up a proactive messaging strategy with the entire customer lifecycle, follow these five steps:

Get employees on board.Extraordinary CX is built from the outside in but implemented from the inside out. To build a customer- centric company culture, first set consistent CX standards across the organization, hire candidates with a customer-first mentality, reward customer-centric behavior and make employee training a top priority.

4

23

1

5• 4 WAYS TO USE SMS TO REDUCE CALL VOLUME | PAGE 11

1 Bodine, Kerry. “Wake Up Call: Call Centers Hold Enormous Potential For Brands.” Forrester, Forrester Research, 7 March 2011.

2 “Call Center Representative Salaries in the United States.” Indeed.com, Indeed, 17 October 2017. www.indeed.com/salaries/Call-Center-Representative-Salaries.

3 Dorman, Stuart. “Challenging Demand is the Real Key to Fixing Call Centre Queues.” Sabio, April 16, 2012.

4 Goasduff, Laurence. “Defining Moments for Your Business.” Smarter With Gartner, Gartner, Inc., 25 May 2016, www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/defining-moments-for-your-business/.

5 Sussin, Jenny, et al. “How to Reach Your Customers Through Mobile Messaging.” Gartner, 22 Nov. 2016.

6 Sussin, “How to Reach Your Customers Through Mobile Messaging.”

7 “2014 Mobile Behavior Report.” Salesforce, January 2014.

8 Dortch, Marlene H. “FCC Fact Sheet.” FCC Electronic Document Management System, Federal Communications Commission, 22 June 2017, apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-345473A1.pdf.

9 “Best Practices: Customers Prefer Self-Service.” CRM Magazine, July 2017. www.destinationcrm.com/Files/Download/2017-10CRMselfService

10 Sussin, “How to Reach Your Customers Through Mobile Messaging.”

11 Mullen, Anthony, et al. “Market Insight: How to Collaborate and Compete in the Emerging VPA, VCA, VEA and Chatbot Ecosystems.” Gartner, 7 March 2017.

12 "2012 Electric Utility Residential Customer Satisfaction Study." J.D. Power. July 11, 2012. www.jdpower.com/press-releases/2012-electric-utility-residential-customer-satisfaction-study.

13 Dobrian, Joseph. "2017 U.S. Customer Service Index (CSI) Study: Automotive Service Quality Rises Along with Overall Customer Satisfaction." J.D. Power Cars. March 16, 2017. www.jdpower.com/cars/articles/jd-power-studies/2017-us-customer-service-index-study-results.

14 Sussin, “How to Reach Your Customers Through Mobile Messaging.”

15 Ibid.

16 “Global Insights on Succeeding in the Customer Experience Era,” Oracle. 2013. www.oracle.com/us/global-cx-study-2240276.pdf

Endnotes

About WestWest delivers communication solutions that help brands create connected customer experiences. We have 30 years of experience strategically improving customer interaction, enhancing productivity and increasing profitability, with clients in healthcare, education, utilities and diverse commercial industries. West Interactive Services solutions include IVR & Self-Service, Proactive Notifications & Mobility, Cloud Contact Center and Professional Services. Experience Connected at west.com/interactive.