Customer Experience, according to recent research*, followed by cost reduction is the foremost reason for offering self-assisted channels in the contact centre environment. Simple interactions and enquiries can be serviced more efficiently in this way, often leading to a greatly-improved experience. Taking direct human involvement out of the equation leads to significant savings - it's no surprise, then, that more companies are either exploring or deploying some form of self-service channel, says Jan K"uhn of INOVO.
While voice, e-mail, SMS and web-chat channels all require the active presence of agents to maintain the interactions, self-service channels do not. In the case of the former channels, measurements of effectiveness include calls per agent/group per day, week and/or month and agent/group productivity - how many hours as a percentage of staffed time are spent interacting with customers?
Every channel seeks to measure and improve on three parameters: Customer Experience (CX), the quantity and/or value of the interactions and the costs it takes to achieve these. Depending on the efficiency and productivity of the specific contact centre, the biggest cost by far is allocated to staffing, which cost may be as high as 60 - 80% for voice channels. Self-service options can have the benefit of reducing staffing quotas leading to obvious gains through savings by implementing these channel options.
Saving on costs may be highly appealing, but the deployment of self-service channels has many motivations, and the implementation of self-service options should be carefully considered prior to rolling them out.
Some examples of the kinds of questions you need to ask yourself, when exploring the viability of self-service channels include the following, and it's important to answer honestly:
* Do you know the breakdown percentages per business service delivered currently? If not, it's better to isolate these before jumping in to something new.
* Are there business services that can be delivered without including an agent? What costs are attached currently to agent involvement?
* Are the identified services sufficient in volume and duration to warrant the addition of self-service channels? If self-service options will only be used by a minute fraction of your customers, then perhaps the costs involved in paying for these will not make it worth your while.
* Do you have fast access to all the data required to conclude an interaction via self-service? The solution must be able to work efficiently in order for it to be productive.
* Is the information that needs to be shared privileged or confidential, and if so, do you have sufficient security, identification and authentication to protect this information? All implementations must protect your customers' valuable data.
* Will the interaction be transactional of nature, and would you be able to validate and track this but still adhere to regulations (e.g. POPI, financial)? There can be no shortcuts when it comes to regulations.
* What channel/s will match the preference of your clients? Even if you think self-service options are great, it's important to have an understanding of the actual preferences of your clients, who may not want a self-service option.
This last point is of paramount importance, as end-user adoption will determine the success of a self-service implementation. A significant proportion of customers must be willing to use it for it to be worthwhile, and the solution must be able to fulfil their requirements in the most efficient way possible should they choose to adopt it. To return to the original point, CX is the consideration that lies behind everything else - it's not simply about efficiency, productivity and cost-saving in isolation, these elements must all positively affect CX.
In a fast-paced business environment that is dynamic, performance, relevance and functionality need to be continuously monitored for relevance to ensure that all channel options, including self-service, are doing what's expected of them and performing at optimal levels.
Jan K"uhn is a director at INOVO, a leading contact centre business solutions provider.
*Dimension Data "2016 Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report
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