Major European Telecom Company

Background

The organization has more than 18 million customers, with a significant percentage of outsourced inbound call centers dealing with all aspects of Customer Service. They receive over 5 million inbound calls every month and the reduction of the costs associated with this was seen as a major corporate priority.

With quality of service having a direct effect on customer retention and new sales, the concern for Customer Service was to at least maintain and ideally to improve Customer Service levels when introducing cost saving initiatives.

With over 6 million visitors to their web site every month the organization was focusing its efforts on improving the web presence as a Customer Service channel.

Key Objectives

The organization had identified that there were 500,000 calls per month requiring assistance for basic mobile queries such as mobile handset usage, replacement of SIM cards, etc. The core objective was therefore to reduce these calls by answering them via the web site. Specific objectives were:

• Reduce the number of basic assistance calls.

• Drive users to the web as a first point of call.

• Create a high level of customer satisfaction with the process to ensure repeat usage.

The Solution

By working closely with in-house teams a structure for a pilot program, as a 'proof of concept', was created. The pilot was designed to focus on two key areas:

• Call deflection for all visitors to the 'assistance' area of the web site.

• Measuring the customer satisfaction levels associated with the process.

The initial solution involved the deployment of a Virtual Chat Agent with the latest 'Cantoche' Living Actor avatar with a friendly and efficient personality. The Virtual Chat Agent was designed as the primary tool for answering customer queries and given significant prominence in the 'assistance' web space. The agent was structured to deliver interactive dialogues and a helpful, friendly and accurate answer to specific mobile queries and questions.

For questions that would be beyond the scope of the initial Knowledge Base, an automatic handover to existing call centers was set up.

As part of the exercise all users were asked if they would take part in a simple and short (5 questions) online satisfaction survey.

Initial Conclusions

The pilot was deemed a resounding success - see Key Results - with high call deflection rates and, even though the solution had a limited initial Knowledge Base, early results on customer satisfaction levels were very high.

The pilot was then moved into a full implementation program which also involves evaluation processes for integration into E-mail and direct to mobile applications.

Key Results

• 50% of inbound interactions have led to call deflection.

• 74 % of users will use web based 'assistance' process again.