Omnichannel Knowledge Series The Omnichannel Dilemma: Everyone Wants It, But How Do You Start? By Daniel Hong Show of hands: Have you ever heard the word omnichannel in a meeting and reflexively grunted just loud enough for the people sitting next to you to hear? Did they acknowledge this with a we re totally on the same page eye-roll? And if the possibility of implementing omnichannel was discussed, were questions met by tactful skepticism, cocked eyebrows and crossed arms? This is a common scene in conference rooms today. While omnichannel has been widely heralded by vendors as the ultimate panacea for broken customer journeys, there s a certain degree of incredulousness within enterprises when it comes to actually making omnichannel customer engagement a reality. The potential is embraced but the perceived heavy lift is not. It makes perfect sense that customers should be able to start their journey in one channel on one device and continue seamlessly in others. A customer s experience should be continuous, with context maintained regardless of touchpoint. This report will helps you understand the challenges inherent in omnichannel and presents actionable advice overcoming them. 2015 24/7 Customer, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 1
Customers Actually Expect Omnichannel Experiences Today, 1.5 billion consumers have Apple and Android devices. Their new capabilities, like Apple Continuity and Google Now (which preserve context and blend experiences across devices and channels), dramatically raise the proverbial bar for digital customer experience. When interacting with businesses, consumers expect the same types of experiences their smart devices and apps deliver. Matias Duarte, the former lead designer of Android at Google, sums it up well (when referring to how consumers engage with apps on multiple devices) but when services actually work seamlessly across all these screens that are available, you re going to be like, OMG, obviously. So Why isn t Omnichannel Mainstream Today? Omnichannel is Complex To make omnichannel work in an enterprise, a lot of moving parts need to work fluidly together: governance, technology, business processes, and metrics. First you need an executive sponsor who will see omnichannel through to the end. Then you need to assemble the right cross-departmental and cross-functional teams from customer care, IT, marketing, ebusiness and possibly others. You also have to deal with the complexities of changing business processes, mapping out APIs, integrating the disparate backend systems, tagging websites and apps, and consolidating infrastructure the list goes on. Omnichannel is Challenging to Measure Measuring ROI from omnichannel is difficult because customer journeys can straddle many different channels and devices. The metrics by which organizations operate by today are typically single channel in construct. That can make it difficult to gauge the success of an omnichannel deployment that s journey-focused. Today over 90 percent of customers use three channels to resolve an issue or conduct a transaction in customer service, and tracking of the customer across these channels has not been common in the industry. 2015 24/7 Customer, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 2 2
5 ACTION TIPS FOR CREATING AN OMNICHANNEL FRAMEWORK Many companies have successfully navigated these challenges. They ve created realistic, practical frameworks that broke down the moving parts into bite-sized tasks. They aligned those against maturation stages that included: channel optimization, channel pairing, and full integration of multiple channels. This approach gives transparency into the multitude of teams involved, the actions needed, and ROI clarity for each interaction, transaction, and journey. It also forces a much-needed collaborative framework exercise across different teams, and provides a compressed version of the realities that impact the overall business and the levers needed to make omnichannel a reality. Over the past several years I ve talked with business and IT execs from a wide spectrum of companies in different stages of omnichannel rollouts. Here are five things I learned about creating an omnichannel framework. Most of your customers start on the website. Today 93 percent of buyers go to the web first and 64 percent of consumers begin their customer service journeys online. Most enterprises already know this but not enough has been done to optimize websites (across devices) where dynamic data- and intent-driven content make it easier for customers to find the right information, discover transactional capabilities, and have a better overall experience. Many of the lofty goals enterprises set forth for cost reduction and call deflection begin on the website, where there are three opportunities they can quickly capitalize on: Virtual Agents: In recent years there s been a steady uptick in virtual agent deployments, empowering customers to get what they need from a website, mobile app or device. Done right there can be very strong gains in reducing web chat and call volume: by upwards of 40 percent. There s a huge opportunity for enterprises to deploy proactive chat that s based on predicting the customer s intent--offering chat at the right moment (related to the device and journey) when a customer needs assistance. Using business rules to trigger chat invites may be the right fit for some enterprises but for many it requires a more sophisticated approach using predictive models that ingest and make sense of high volumes of data. This use of data at scale continuously refines how and when to engage customers for chat. It s what enterprises need, given customer behavior is ever-changing in an environment that is always changing as well. The same approach can be used for proactive virtual agents. This is foundational for omnichannel. Tagging websites has been done for mostly advertising, marketing and sales reasons. But not much of it has been done for enabling customer service journeys. Tagging provides the context needed to make sense of interactions as customers traverse channels and devices. 2015 24/7 Customer, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 23
Over 85 percent of customers that can t accomplish what they need on a website will cross channels to phone, mobile app, web chat, social media or email. And 70 percent will seek live agent assistance. Even when websites are optimized there will be a slew of customers that will cross channels and devices in a single journey for a variety of different reasons that include wanting to talk or chat with a live agent, using different devices, workflows within the journey, preferences, and time constraints. Identifying those journeys where channel transitions are common and connecting them (moving context from one channel to another) or improving an interaction and enriching it by blending the interaction simultaneously with another channel is where omnichannel experiences that actually touch the customer begin. Three channel pairings that can be rolled out first include: Bringing together the IVR and the smartphone is a powerful combination that powers visual IVR and collaborative experiences. This is the quickest and easiest path to combining channels in a meaningful way for customers. Task resolution is a lot faster and easier. Customers are engaged at a deeper level on the digital grid through a multi-modal interface that pushes rich content to their connected devices. A large percentage of customers will pick up the phone and call customer service after being on the website. And of those that call, 65 percent are still on the website when calling to speak to an agent. So it makes a lot of sense to pair the website to the voice channel. This can be done variety of ways such as web session ID and ANI matching or WebRTC, but moving context will likely require the website to be tagged as described above. Once a bridge is created between the website and the voice channel, enterprises can roll up their sleeves and become innovative about optimizing and changing interactions for both self- and agent-assisted service. The same approach can be applied with mobile apps in the voice channel. This is a logical progression in optimizing the website. The seamless handoff between a virtual agent and web chat agent provides a safety net in which customers can resolve complex issues and conduct transactions while staying in-channel. Context is preserved throughout the journey. Over 85 percent of customers that can t accomplish what they need on a website will cross channels to phone, mobile app, web chat, social media or email 2015 24/7 Customer, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 4
For more than 20 years enterprises have bolted on more and more customer engagement channels that have (for the most part) evolved in isolation from each other. We ve witnessed this transpiring over time with storefronts, phone, email, web, social, and mobile. And soon to come: wearables. Across these touchpoints channel-specific business processes dictated much of how customers were serviced. Success was measured on conforming and adhering to these processes. This thinking and structure needs to change with omnichannel. There s a great quote by Einstein: We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them. This should be written in permanent marker emblazoned on whiteboards in the conference rooms where omnichannel discussions are held. Fully integrated channels render a channel-less experience, so the rules of channels simply don t apply. It s no longer about conformity to the metrics of one channel but rather connecting the dots to create the most helpful experiences for customers at that moment. During a customers journeys, channels can be added or customers can shift from one to another with ease based on the best treatment for their need at that moment, on that device, and at that stage in their journey. The enterprise proactively brings the omnichannel experience to the customer. With fully integrated channels customer experience teams finally have the canvas to get unhinged, innovate, and create truly unique and differentiated experiences that are no longer limited by the constraints of a single channel, single modality, or single device. Here is where enterprises can provide: escalation paths that cross channels in a unique way; dual-screen workspaces for customers; upstream and downstream multimodality; federation, and always-on virtual agents. These are just a few examples of the unique experiences that can be introduced once the connective tissue is established across channels. And many more will come to the fore as companies become more creative and more adept at omnichannel experiences. It s no longer about conformity to the metrics of one channel but rather connecting the dots to create the most helpful experiences for customers at that moment. 2015 24/7 Customer, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 2 5
The market views omnichannel as the ability to maintain context as customers move from one channel and device to another. But that s not enough to create a sustainable competitive advantage in customer experience. Three elements are required for omnichannel experiences to have material impact on the top and bottom lines: context and data continuity; channel orchestration for self- and assisted-service experiences; and intent prediction. Implementing these requires an extensible platform that leverages data at its core to power digital customer engagement. With fully integrated channels you have the right data sources (interaction data) which can be fused with other enterprise data (CRM, ERP, BI, billing, etc) and unstructured data (VOC, social, virtual agent/web chat/call transcripts) on one platform to predict customer intent and take action in real-time. Prediction goes hand-in-hand with omnichannel because, after all, it s about determining and providing the best customer treatment at that particular stage in a customer s journey. The cloud deployment model is an economically palatable and flexible option to test omnichannel capabilities without the significant capital outlay required for the technology, integration and professional services needed to get it rolled out successfully. The easiest and quickest ways to deploy omnichannel experiences today include: visual IVR, website to phone, and virtual agent to web chat. You should identify and evaluate which of your customer journeys can be optimized with those channel pairings, and start there. How omnichannel is viewed and defined will change as enterprises push the edge of what s possible in customer engagement, by combining omnichannel with prediction. Over the next 12-24 months, as more omnichannel experiences are introduced, we ll be sure to witness a lot more up-nods, fist bumps, and high fives in those omnichannel meetings. [24]7 [24]7 makes customer service and sales simple. Our platform and applications use big data and predictive analytics to understand customers and drive better service and sales results for large enterprises. Daniel Hong is Senior Director, Product Marketing Strategy at [24]7 Inc. [24]7 s platform enables an omnichannel interaction experience. We connect customer interactions across an enterprise s web, mobile, chat, social, and phone channels. It s all in real-time and in the cloud. Our solutions drive immediate business results. We increase revenues, reduce service and sales costs, and create more satisfied customers. [24]7 serves the Global 100 market leaders in the Financial Services, Retail, Technology, Telecommunications, and Travel Industries. For more information, visit: 247-inc.com www.247-inc.com +1.650.385.2247 queries@247-inc.com 2015 24/7 Customer, Inc. All Rights Reserved.