Time For the Offense to Take the Field Pro-Active Customer Contact
Joe Outlaw, Principal Analyst
Contact Centers
September 23, 2008
2
Focus Points
• What is pro-active customer contact (PCC) and why you should care?
• Which strategies best leverage pro-active customer contact?
• Which applications and technologies enable pro-active customer contact strategies?
4
Pro-active Customer Contact (PCC): More Than Traditional Tele-Marketing
Comprehensive Pro-Active Customer Contact
Comprehensive Pro-Active Customer Contact
Notification and AlertingNotification and Alerting
Outbound IVR applicationsOutbound IVR applications
Customer FeedbackCustomer Feedback
Outbound DialingOutbound Dialing
Collections
Tele-marketing for new sales
Emergencies
Appointment
RemindersProduct
Recalls
After call feedback
With product registration
Random sampling
Health check w/order option
Order or service
status update
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Impact of PCC on Customer Retention and Revenues
Source: The Loyalty Effect
Relationship Between Customer
Retention Rate and Profitability
Profit/customer
-25
0
50
0 1 2 3 4 5
Years Customer Retained
25
Proactivity increases
customers’ positive view of the company – strengthens the brand
Positive customers remain
customers longer
Positive customers buy more
Positive customers recommend the company’s products to others
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Impact of PCC on Competitive Differentiation
Addition of point PCC
applications
Reactive, Pro-active, and Blended
Reactive-only
customer contact
Reactive-only
Widening
Gap
Point applications evolve to become comprehensive PCC program
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Impact of PCC on Contact Center Operations
Contact Center Costs
Agent
Satisfaction
Reduce inbound calls, particularly
complaints
Increase job diversity for call center agents
Reduce staff turnover which reduces recruitment and training
Fill inbound call troughs with pro-active
Increase agent and systems utilization
Simplify staff planning
9
PCC Emphasis: Contact Center Cost Reduction
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
Incoming customer calls
Time of Day
8AM 10AM Noon 2PM
OutboundContacts
StaffingLevel
Outbound contacts balance valleys in inbound call loads
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PCC Emphasis: Customer Loyalty and Revenue Growth
Contact Center
Revenues
Customer
Satisfaction
Mine customer interaction data -
identify opportunities to provide valued
customers’ with:•useful product/service information•offers on new and related products of previous or projected interest for sale
Identify "best" resource for pro-active service follow-up or sales offers
Challenges:• need different agent performance
metrics for outbound and blended contact handling
•need to provide sales training for agents
• add sales and blended skill sets to WFM and routing applications
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Future: Unified PCC
Sales and Marketing
Contact Center
Revenue FocusHigh
Customer Contact - Reactive Customer Contact - Proactive
Customer Service Focus High
UnifiedPCC
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Pro-Active Customer Contact Technologies
Outbound Dialing and scripting
Automated dialing applications - can be operated in various states of automation, such as power, preview, and predictive
IVR and voice portal platform-based outbound applications
DTMF or speech recognition interfaced
applications for outbound calling can
support simple to complex interaction
Notification and alerting
Outbound notification and alerts can be
delivered by telephone, fax, other
media, and mixed media, can be
scheduled or event-driven
Pro-active survey and customer feedback collection/analysis applications
Can be a few instant reaction questions
after a call or lengthy periodic surveys
with the same objective - to gather
and analyze the “voice of the
customer”
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Pro-active Customer Contact Applications
Pro-Active Customer Contact as a competitive differentiator –
combating commoditization in some of the most competitive industries.
Insurance
• On-boarding• Claim-process• Renewal reminder
Banking
• On-boarding• Credit card fraud• Payment reminders
Telecom
• Switch to auto pay• Minutes used
Retail
• Sale alerts• Delivery notification• Product recalls• Order confirmation
Govt.
• Emergency• Tax reminders• Political campaign
Utilities
• Appt. confirm• Outage status• Crew callout
Health Care
• Appt. remind• Prescription renew• Disease mgt
Airlines/Travel
• Flight status update
• Resv. confirm
• Emergency
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Summary and Recommendations
• PCC solutions: leaders are moving from point to comprehensive
deployments
• PCC solutions can deliver both operational efficiencies and
revenue growth
• Start by creating a PCC vision for your organization
• Develop a PCC strategy and tactics to achieve your vision
• Determine application/technology, staffing, training requirements
• Iterate toward your vision - quality improvement approach
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Growth Forecasts?
Competitive Structure?
Emerging Trends?
Strategic Recommendations?
Other?
Please inform us by taking our survey.
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2421, via email, [email protected], or on Twitter at
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