Contact Center – Transform or
Perish!
Transform or perish is the IT equivalent of Darwin’s
theory.
Contact Center – Transform or Perish!
Transform or perish is the IT equivalent of Darwin’s theory.
Transform or perish is the IT equivalent of Darwin’s theory. As global organizations expand their
footprint across continents, the number of customers required to be supported in real time increases
at a staggering rate. When we are talking about tens of millions of daily contacts from customers,
we need an integrated solution that can streamline various customer contact channels (phone, agent
chat, chat bot, email, social media, etc.) and route calls accordingly.
Contact Center solutions have evolved in a big way over the past decade. To complicate things
further, it has coincided with Digital Banking and Fin-Tech (Financial Technology) advancements,
which has enabled customers to execute banking transactions from their portable devices such as
smartphones, tablets and computers. Financial institutions need to walk a fine rope between
providing convenience to customers and adding security to transactions. In this article, we explore
the hottest trends in Contact Center Technology and how banks are leveraging it to redefine customer
service experience.
Why do banks need contact centers more than anyone else?
Banks have been investing in digital platforms for decades and they are truly reaping the benefits
now. Back in the day one had to visit the branch for the smallest of interactions – balance enquiry,
funds transfer, statement generation, update in contact information, requesting a checkbook, issuing
a draft, etc.
Customers are now performing all these transactions (and many more) from the comfort of their homes.
It is a win-win situation for both parties, as banks can cut down on the no of staff present at
branches and customers can save their time and commute by transacting efficiently.
What are Contact Centers all about?
As suggested by the name, Contact Center is a centralized location which receives and manages all
customer touchpoints – be it over telephone calls, emails, social interactions or video
interactions. It plays a pivotal role in an organization’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
strategy execution.
In a Banking and Finance set-up, contact centers would receive hundreds and thousands of
simultaneous calls from customers requiring different services. Traditional telephone line based
customer handling was not able to meet this demand and hence found itself replaced by a number of
innovative call handling technologies.
Central to all techniques is the ability to identify a customer’s need before an interaction has
begun so that his call can be forwarded to an agent skilled appropriately to handle it. Given the
global, round-the-clock nature of the modern financial institutions, it is imperative to have agent
available round the clock to respond to customer queries. To add to it, there are situations where
all agents are busy and callers have to be queued.
As customer interactions grow, more number of agents have to be recruited. Once this is done, there
is a need to monitor their performances, shift availability times, on-call time and a number of
important Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). A modern contact center does all this and much more by
implementing and integrating a number of solutions for Interaction Routing, Workforce Management,
Call Recording and Reporting, Speech Analytics and much more.
The Rise, Fall and Rise of Contact Centers
Not surprisingly, Call Center (Contact Center of today) has a creation myth, as is the case with
many technological advancements. Its origins date back to the 1960s, which was the first time mass
call-handling systems were put in place. Private Automated Business Exchanges (PABX) were put in
place to handle large number of customer interactions. Customer calls got to a central point from
which calls were manually transferred to agents.
The evolution to an Automatic Call Distributors (ACD) was only a matter of time, as there was a need
to eliminated human intervention in managing ever growing call volumes and ensuring the calls get to
correct agents. PBAX and ACD marriage made way for development of large scale call centers.
Financial giants Barclaycard and Access were one of the early adopters, who had started handling
tens of thousands of calls per week.
Come 1980s and Aspect Telecommunications was founded that made significant improvements in ACD
technology. The Jim Carreker founded company cut down on the call waiting time by separating calls
at an early stage and routing them to the most suitable agent available. Aspect continued to push
the bar further by launching Aspect CallCenter – its flagship product that propelled the company on
its path to become the world’s largest dedicated ACD manufacturer.
By the time 1990s came along, call centers were indispensable for Fintech industry. Banks, insurance
companies and brokerage firms all jumped onto the bus – competing to offer personalized, 24×7
services. Interactive Voice Response (IVR) was developed and ISDN (Integrated Services Digital
Network) revolutionized network connectivity.
In the present century, we are in the Computer Telephony Integration age which allows telephones and
computers to work in sync. It coincided with the dot com era which allowed companies to offer
technical support and customer care entirely through websites. The industry was experiencing
exponential growth and offshoring technical support jobs to India, Philippines and Africa became a
trend. It allows companies access to a large, qualified talent pool at a fraction of the cost.
A global backlash against offshoring saw a reversal of this trend which continues till date. Optical
fiber revolution and Cloud Computing has allowed datacenters to function in an “always on” manner,
where information requested by agents is instantly retrieved from servers located thousands of miles
away and flashed on their screens. Virtual teams located across time zones are able to function as
one integrated unit, offering world class service and support to global customers. Long story short,
Call Centers of yesteryears have grown into more sophisticated and diverse Contact Centers of today.
They are here to stay.
Modern Contact Centers – Opportunities and Challenges
A relatively old (2015) but entirely relevant Watermark Consulting study quantifies several aspects of customer
experience that directly impact your business. One of the most noticeable result shows that customer
experience leaders have outperformed S&P 500 Index by 35% when it comes to yielding results. On the
other extreme, the customer experience laggards trail it by 45%, leaving them full 80% behind the
leaders.
These numbers should lay to rest the never ending conundrum a CEO is often faced with – sandwiched
between the boards pressure of delivering quarterly dividends and his own vision for the company’s
future. If there is no customer, there is no question of having quarterly dividends for too long
anyway.
Conversational Banking – Banking has evolved like few other industries in the
past decades. ATMs, Telephone Banking, Online Banking and Mobile Banking have all been
transformational for banks and customers alike. While the customers may find comfort in using the
old technology or switching to newer ones, your business has to be ready to offer both to deliver
delightful customer experience efficiently, the way the customer prefers it.
This
Accenture insight on evolution of banking explores how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big
Data can be leveraged to customize experience for each caller. Breaking away from the traditional
contacts, customers now want human conversations with the agents.
New age customers want instant, convenient and liquid conversations. Mobile devices are at the
center of every transaction customers wants to perform. Messaging apps have become customers’
preferred medium of interaction as they provide both text and voice based conversation. AI is fast
mirroring human like behavior and is ready to take up repetitive, low value interactions which make
about 80% of all customer interactions.
Beyond Random Interactions – The Customer Experience Journey
Statistics from The U.S. Chamber of Commerce state that bad customer service is responsible for 68%
of the total customers that leave. Customer acquisition being far too costly than customer
retention, your best bet is to retain your existing customers by providing them delightful
experience every time they dial in. Gartner’s study confirms this notion, as they believe 80% of
your future revenue is going to come from 20% of your existing customers. Here’s a study from Pricewaterhouse Coopers which elaborates the cost of bad
customer experience around the world, with a focus on The United States.
Your present vendor probably provides an Automated Call Distribution powered IVR facility, which
routes customers to the correct agents. Your customers are getting their queries addressed and you
have also invested in email, chat and bot capabilities to get your contact center “future ready”.
Still, when your performance is audited, you see that the Net Promoter Score (NPS) and customer
satisfaction scores are low.
Eventually, your customers start leaving. You are investing a lot in technology of present and of
the future but still, the results are not improving. What went wrong here?
Let us run through this from a customer standpoint. He mailed his query, for which he got an
automated response mentioning a 48-hour turnaround time. After waiting in vain, he dialed your
customer service number, provided authentication details twice by keying in his account number and
then his credit card number. He was finally able to reach an agent who asked for his credentials all
over again.
His patience being tested, he provided the details again and then, not surprisingly, the agent asked
him what his query was as he had no access to the mail your customer’s first wrote. Not many
customers would have the time or patience to go through this frustrating experience every time they
reach you and hence, switching over to another bank is the only logical option they are left with.
In the next section, we have a look at how existing infrastructure can combine with cutting edge
technological solutions such as Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and Cloud Computing to drive
synergies and enable your business take a quantum leap by enabling a round-the-clock, 360-degree
customer service
Embrace the Cloud powered, AI bot – driven, 24x7x365 Contact Center
Innovations of tomorrow are staring us right in the face. While planning your next budgetary spends,
make sure you take into account the imminent explosion of Internet of Things (IoT) and chatbots.
Chatbots are already catching up with global banks and this IBM study has churned out some very
impressive numbers about their success.
According to IBM, 80% of Contact Center interactions are of repetitive nature and bots are already
demonstrating 90% success rate in addressing them. The accumulated savings are projected in the
range of $8 bn!
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) giant Salesforce has also come up with telling numbers about
the future of Contact Centers. Though AI is a technology that dates back to the invention of
computers, it had never captured as widespread curiosity as it has today.
This whitepaper by Salesforce and International Data Corporation (IDC) predicts a $1.1 trillion
boost in global economy as a result of incorporating AI in CRM activities. More than 800,000 jobs
are expected to be created from this, outnumbering those lost to AI. 79% of global respondents had
either already invested in AI or are planning to do that over next two years.
These are indeed very exciting times to be in the digital world. More so, if you are a banking or
financial institution. Technologies that were being developed in isolation from each other over
decades (in Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Big Data, Hardware and
Networking domains) are all set to work with each other and drive unprecedented synergies.
Technology giants such as Amazon, Google and Apple have all launched their own Virtual Assistants
with global acceptance. This enables organizations to offer personalized recommendations for
clients. As technology advances, customers will get more and more impatient. Contact Centers
supporting banking and financial enterprises are fast changing and we are not far from the day when
customers would want businesses to proactively tell them what they will need down the line and have
a solution ready for it when the time comes.
Do you want to shape the future of digital finance? If yes, let us know through our website and we
will be happy to partner with you along the journey.