In a recent chronicle in “Telekom Idag” our own customer experience guru Fredrik Lemming shares his thoughts and experiences on how to meet the challenges many of our clients are facing. The original article in Swedish is available at telekomidag.se/fredrik-lemming-sa-staller-ni-om-kundmotet-snabbt-nu. Below is a translation for those of you who prefer English.
In the wake of the recent situation with the coronavirus outbreak, we see that many Telia customers want to act responsibly and take action for their employees, for their customers and for their operations. Actions that include increased capacity for video as an alternative to meeting in the office, training chatbots for new questions or giving employees the opportunity to work remotely. We share our insights from the recent days. The keywords are scalability, flexibility and accessibility.
There is not one single silver bullet that solves all the challenges. Rather, many different collaborative efforts and actions combine to mitigate, minimize or neutralize negative effects. For those of you with a lot of customer contacts, both digital and live, there are several things you might consider to keep your operations up and running.
Balance capacity increases
If you increase the capacity for simultaneous calls in your IVR, then also remember to log in more agents to get the desired effect.
Let employees work from home
With a cloud-based communication platform, there is every opportunity to work remotely with intact and full functionality, or to set up more workplaces at a backup site. Take advantage of this. As a temporary solution in a strained situation, it may also be an alternative to activate employees’ private mobile numbers in the platform to receive calls and work remotely.
Update information in all channels. Preferably in synch
Effective distribution of validated information, at the same time, in all channels, is important for confidence-building communication. That’s why web, IVR and the internal information that your agents have access to and convey should be in tune and synchronized. Otherwise, you run the risk of just adding more confusion. Especially important now when the situation is developing at a rapid pace.
Capture the questions on your site
If your web site visitors search for information or use a chat bot on your site, their search phrases and messages are important input to your communication work and strategy. Use searches and questions to identify gaps in your information and quickly fill those gaps by presenting relevant answers to trending searches on your web. It may save valuable customer service capacity.
Meet online instead of live
In the specific situation that we now have, where everyone needs to contribute to slow down the virus transmission rate, meeting online can be a way to keep business running while caring for employees and customers.
To make this work in practice, as a full-fledged alternative, simplicity is important. Don’t rely on customers having to install special programs or change device settings on their devices. Screen sharing and co browsing are also important functions to be able to discuss documents or help clients navigate your website. With screen and document sharing via webRTC, your employees can manage personal meetings from any location and computer as long as there is internet.
Make sure self-service is updated
Self-service should preferably be an integral part of the contact flow in order to offer the best use and experience in a challenging situation like the present one. When in place you may switch between manual handling and self-service during a conversation or, naturally, to stay completely in self-service.
Again, relevance is important here. Try to capture the customer’s needs as accurately as possible. Maybe you can provide self-service in some form while the customer waits in a queue?
Use text messaging
In critical situations, we know that proactivity has good effect. For example, if you can, offer customers who call in to receive a text with links to your site, or to a dedicated smart FAQ, where updated information is available. It doesn’t have to be perfect design-wise, but if the customers find the required information, it may suffice, and they can hang up. This type of SMS could possibly also link the customer to a virtual assistant that can provide basic help quickly.
Feel free to contact us if you would like to discuss your customer meeting. We can help both in the short and long term.
