October | 2019
This article discusses
Let’s look at the essential components for driving a digital adoption framework for an organization driving customers from costlier channels of communication to digital ones.
Why driving digital adoption is such a big deal?
Cost of servicing a customer conversation via voice channel is almost four-five times more per transaction when compared to digital channels. Add to this the fact that meeting customer needs and requirements is not enough. 75% of customers expect service to be faster and more relevant1. But at the same time, 94% of consumers have experienced frustration when using voice channels to communicate with a company2. 52% of customers have called out “having to repeat themselves”, 49% of customers have highlighted “waiting for a live agent” as key issues.
Now in the midst of all of this, let’s not forget that 7/10 customers are ready to pay more for a better customer service3 and 78% of the millennials expect customer support agents to already know their contact and product information when they reach out for support4.
How to view deflection from a customer’s perspective?
To kick things on, Organizations should conduct the “Inside-out Analysis” by leveraging call listening and speech analytics to identify call types that can be easily deflected. A top-call driver analysis would come handy here with details listed towards the sub-call types aka reasons for the main conversations, a step further into the analysis would include understanding the need of human intervention required, rule-based solutions and ease of implementation.
Example: Consider a TV services provider’s customer service scenario where customers have been reaching out to the contact centre for resolving recording issues about the programs that they love to watch later. Call sub-types if looked at granularly reveal that troubleshooting for certain call types is doable by customers themselves either via mobile apps, configuration settings on TV app itself, or website videos for resolution. Customers needn’t call the contact centre and waste their precious time waiting for instructions. Now, we’re not saying that every age group/ customer will be able to handle things on their own but if we’re to do a pareto analysis and still achieve business benefits, it’s worth trying. Also, within target call types, certain calls will need to be excluded considering the level of customer support, value risk and exceptions.
Figure 1: Digital adoption framework
Figure 2: Conversation deflection analysis mechanism
Customer support today runs through multiple channels combined by various journeys; prioritization between channels helps drive better customer experience efficiently. Given that every customer journey is unique, but can touch various digital channels (website FAQs, website account, apps, chat, social networks, forums) and traditional channels (IVR, contact centres).
Mapping out various journeys for customers and capturing their priorities in terms of channel is key part of ascertaining the most efficient channels to handle customer conversations.
As a third step, developing a comprehensive migration strategy to deflect customers to priority channels via Push and Pull actions:
1. Push actions:
2. Pull actions:
Two key factors that should be kept in mind that: Born digital customers are more likely to stay on digital channels –onboarding is critical to log term digital use. Migration is not done on average at a very granular level (e.g. contact reason, client segment) and migration strategy should involve targeted initiatives for different customer groups with key metrics to track performance.
Finally, on an on-going basis, customer journeys should be analysed to detect gaps in the design and functionality of digital channels. One mode of assessing the impact of digital channels would be to use customer surveys to deep dive on the key reasons behind these gaps and address them by redesigning interfaces and adding new functionalities.
How to measure impact of the digital adoption framework?
Having a strategy in place is of no use if there aren’t any performance measures in place to assess the progress made over a duration of time and validate the on-ground-realities. On a high-level, there should be at least two variations of the KPIs being assessed:
1. Vertical KPIs:
2. Journey KPIs:
These KPIs need to be assessed by channel from an “as-is” to a “to-be” state target perspective where the movement across the live & self-service channels should be tracked in relation to the historical data. What would be really important here is to understand the migration impact that gets created within inter and intra channels of support, because organizations would want to stay away from not being able to support customer at the hour of need or turning them away from a channel of choice in the first go.
It must be a process where slowly, but steadily an organization is able to shift adoption towards digital channels for the right conversation types.
To support the performance measurement, dual architecture to accelerate the adoption of newer channels is also a key parameter:
Any transformational framework would require proper organization structure and governance to enable fulfilment of best practices. Digital Adoption Unit should ensure that:
Operating model should define the right level of RACI (Responsible Accountable Consulted Informed) keeping in mind:
Figure 3: Process transformation powered by technology levers
Has anyone ever benefited from this approach?
Yes, several organizations.
*Source: Wipro research
So, what’s next
Customers are already shifting their preferences, product and service organizations have also understood this but clearly there’s much to do. Adapting technology with a method to the madness (a framework) is imperative for any modern organization (product or service provider) to lead the path to digital transformation. There will be challenges along the way, and it’s not an easy path, but with one-step at a time, service organizations can truly master the act of driving adoption across digital channels of communications.
References
1https://www.salesforce.com/research/customer-expectations/
3https://www.accenture.com/us-en/services/interactive-index
4https://info.microsoft.com/rs/157-GQE-382/images/dynamics365-en-global-state-customer-service.pdf
Sanyog Chaudhry
Digital Operations & Platforms, Enterprise Operations Transformation, Wipro
Sanyog is a seasoned digital and transformation experience leader with 12 years of rich exposure and is responsible for creating operational transformation solutions for CXO level clients across multiple industries.
Sanyog leads consulting assignments for scoping & delivery of transformational programs along with engaging with the sales & consulting teams on the transformation offerings suite.
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