crm + acd = personalized service 14 14_final.pdf · sessions, sms, social media, etc.). and in the...

CRM + ACD = Personalized Service

August 2014

Sponsored By:

- i - © DMG Consulting LLC

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Personalizing Contact Center Interactions 1

Real-Life Examples 3

Customer Service 3

Sales 4

Benefits of ACD/CRM Integrations 5

Final Thoughts 7

About NewVoiceMedia 8

About DMG Consulting LLC 8

- 1 - © DMG Consulting LLC

Introduction

The customer relationship management (CRM) system and the automatic call distributor (ACD) or dialer (for outbound), are the two most essential applications in a contact center. The ACD or dialer manages the flow of incoming and outgoing interactions. The CRM system tracks customer activities and everything the organization does to build and enhance the relationship. After close to 20 years of independence, the worlds of CRM and ACD are coming together, enabling companies to deliver a personalized and highly differentiated service experience. When these two core contact center systems are fully integrated, they improve the customer journey by adding context to every interaction. This enrichment process enables companies to determine the ideal way of handling all inbound and outbound interactions (calls, email, faxes, chat sessions, SMS, social media, etc.). And in the process, it optimizes service, the customer journey, handling speed and cost, which are the primary goals for most contact centers.

Personalizing Contact Center Interactions

In a typical contact center, an incoming call or email is routed to an agent who has the appropriate skills to handle the interaction. This is called skill-based routing (SBR). Even if the company uses computer telephony integration (CTI) to deliver each customer’s account information along with the call or email, the agent still has to do research to determine the best way to handle the inquiry, sales opportunity or collection. This has been the primary approach to handling interactions for the past 15 – 20 years. Skill-based routing is more efficient than routing interactions to any agent on a first come/first served basis, but does not result in personalized service. Adaptive and intelligent routing is finally being incorporated into contact centers, and it has the potential to greatly improve the service experience while reducing operating costs. (See Figure 1.) The idea is that all incoming (or outgoing, for that matter) interactions are checked and assessed prior to being delivered to either a self-service application or agent. During the “checking” step, the ACD looks into the CRM application to determine the optimal method for handling each interaction, and then routes the call/email/SMS appropriately.


Figure 1: Adaptive & Intelligent Real-Time Routing Defined

Source: DMG Consulting LLC, August 2014

In order for this to work, given that this step has to occur in nanoseconds, the CRM system has to be designed to support a high level of integration and information sharing. There needs to be a native integration between the ACD and CRM so that the systems flawlessly interact, exchange customer data and apply decision rules. The concept of adaptive real-time routing has been discussed in contact centers for 10 years. Market innovators appreciated the value of delivering personalized service to each and every contact, but lacked the deep integrations between their ACD and CRM systems to enable this activity. Salesforce.com’s open architecture and partner ecosystem has made this integration a reality. Many cloud-based ACD and outbound vendors have built native out-of-the-box integrations to Salesforce to allow their mutual customers to easily utilize data within Salesforce when routing interactions. Since it’s a standard feature and not one that that requires a custom integration, more organizations are starting to take advantage of this feature.


Real-Life Examples

Adaptive and intelligent routing allows companies to personalize service experiences. Each customer/prospect interaction is assessed and routed to the right resource for handling. The resource may be a customized self-service IVR script, if the caller prefers agentless support, or it could be a specialty team of agents for high-value customers. The excitement and value is that for the first time, businesses can create automated business rules that review and route every interaction based on real-time activities. This new approach to service is accompanied by a challenge for companies: they now need to explain to customers why their service options have changed. However, with proper training and ongoing communication, this issue can be properly addressed. Following are 2 scenarios where real-time adaptive and intelligent routing is being used to enhance the customer and agent experience, while reducing operating costs.

Customer Service

Situation: As reflected in Figure 2, Customer Mike called the customer service department to discuss a problem he was having with a new product. He spent 20 minutes on a call with agent Bob who advised him to try a few different things and call back if he had additional questions. Mike had one small follow-up question and wanted to get back to agent Bob, who was familiar with his situation. Solution: When interactions arrive in the department, the ACD searches the CRM application to determine if the customer has called within the past 30 days. If they have called recently, the ACD notifies the IVR, which offers the caller the option of being connected to the agent he most recently spoke to, assuming that the agent is working, and provides the date of the prior conversation. The caller is given the choice of speaking to this agent or being transferred to the next available agent.

Benefits:

1. Customer is engaged and empowered by being put in control of their own

destiny.

2. Call handle time is greatly reduced by re-engaging an agent who is already familiar with the situation.


3. Agent is happier because they don’t have to dedicate the first 30 – 45 seconds of the call apologizing to the customer for having to ask them to repeat what they already told someone else.

Figure 2: Customer Service Scenario


Sales

Situation: In August 2013, Debbie called company A to order a new sweater. During the call, the sales agent, Sandra, showed Debbie a few items that would go well with the sweater. Debbie ended up purchasing the sweater, as well as a pair of slacks and shoes. In July 2014, Debbie calls again to place a new order. (See Figure 3.) Solution: When the call comes in, the ACD checks the CRM/sales system and sees that Debbie had a great prior experience speaking with Sandra. Debbie’s call is routed to Sandra, who receives the call along with a notification that reminds her of the last call she had with Debbie. Sandra’s been trained to say hello, get reacquainted, and re-establish the rapport. Sandra does this within the first 30 seconds of the call. Debbie is thrilled to tell Sandra how many compliments she received about the last outfit and welcomes Sandra’s new suggestions about what she should buy this time.


Benefits:

1. Customer is thrilled to re-establish contact with an agent who knows her and

her taste.

2. Customer spends more with the company, due to the success of the last interaction.

3. Profit is greater for the company.

4. Agent receives positive feedback from customer, and earns a bonus by selling more product.

5. Customer shares their wonderful experience on social media, improving the company brand.

Figure 3: Sales Scenario


Benefits of ACD/CRM Integrations

Companies have been trying to integrate their ACD and CRM applications for years, in order to simplify their servicing environments. Unfortunately, the difficulty and cost of building custom integrations have made this prohibitive for most companies, except those with large contact centers and very deep pockets.


But this is changing due to the availability of out-of-box integrations between leading cloud-based CRM and ACD/dialer companies. The cloud has created a new ecosystem of vendors who want to cooperate with each other and have built open solutions that better facilitate integration. This new breed of vendor sees strength in integrating with other vendors who provide complementary solutions for their shared customers. Adaptive and intelligent real-time routing allows companies to deliver personalized service on a one-to-one basis. Now that it comes as a standard out-of-the-box offering, more companies can take advantage of shared resources and deliver personalized servicing experiences for their customers and prospects. At a high level, this integration improves the customer experience, drives loyalty and reduces operating expenses. See Figure 4 for a detailed list of benefits and reasons to invest in a CRM application that is tightly integrated with the inbound and outbound ACD and dialer.

Figure 4: Benefits of ACD/CRM Integrations



Final Thoughts

Integrating CRM and ACD and/or dialer systems is a necessity, as it allows companies to deliver personalized service. Now that cloud-based vendors are making it relatively inexpensive and easy to acquire and integrate third-party applications, companies can afford to make investments to improve their servicing environments. These investments simplify and streamline the servicing process, benefitting customers, enterprises and employees. There is a new generation of servicing infrastructure available, enabled by the cloud. Any company that has not updated their CRM application in more than 5 years should take a look at these new integration-friendly servicing systems. Do the math; build a business case and calculate the financial benefits and trade-offs of continuing to do everything yourself versus investing in a third-party pre-integrated servicing application. If the numbers are compelling, it’s time to rethink your servicing infrastructure and make investments in your future, including more personalized service. It’s not a question of whether or not you need to do this, but only a question of when.


About NewVoiceMedia

NewVoiceMedia powers customer connections that transform businesses globally. The leading

vendor’s award-winning cloud customer contact platform connects organizations with their

customers worldwide, enabling them to deliver a personalized and unique customer experience

and drive a more effective sales and marketing team. With a true cloud environment and

proven 99.999% platform availability, NewVoiceMedia ensures complete flexibility, scalability and

reliability.

Spanning 116 countries and six continents, NewVoiceMedia’s 250+ customers include: Topcon,

PhotoBox, DPD, Lumesse, QlikTech and Wowcher.

For more information visit www.newvoicemedia.com or follow NewVoiceMedia on

Twitter @NewVoiceMedia

About DMG Consulting LLC

DMG Consulting LLC is a leading independent research, advisory and consulting firm specializing

in contact centers, back-office and real-time analytics. DMG provides insight and strategic

guidance and tactical advice to end users, vendors and the financial community. Each year, DMG

devotes more than 10,000 hours to producing primary research on IT sectors, including workforce

optimization (quality management/liability recording), speech analytics, workforce management,

performance management, desktop analytics, surveying/voice of the customer, text analytics,

cloud-based contact center infrastructure, dialing, interactive voice response systems and

proactive customer care. Our actionable solutions are proven to deliver a lasting competitive

advantage, and often pay for themselves in as little as three months. Learn more at

www.dmgconsult.com.

http://www.newvoicemedia.com/

https://twitter.com/NewVoiceMedia

© 2014 DMG Consulting LLC. All rights reserved. This Report is protected by United States copyright law. The reproduction, transmission or distribution of this Report in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of DMG Consulting LLC is strictly prohibited. You may not alter or remove any copyright, trademark or other notice from this Report. This Report contains data, materials, information and analysis that is proprietary to and the confidential information of DMG Consulting LLC and is provided for solely to purchasers of this Report for their internal use. THIS REPORT AND ANY DATA, MATERIALS, INFORMATION AND ANALYSIS CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE DISCLOSEDTO OR USED BY ANY OTHER PERSON OR ENTITYWITHOUT THE EXPRESS PRIOR WRITTEN CONSENTOF DMG CONSULTING LLC. Substantial effort went into verifying and validating the accuracy of the information contained within this Report, however, DMG Consulting LLC disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy or completeness of this information. DMG Consulting LLC shall not be liable for any errors or omissions in the information contained herein or for any losses or damages arising from use hereof.

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