Multi-Channel vs Omni-Channel

Ian Golding is one of the most respected Customer Experience specialists out there. Recently in his blog he wrote a fantastic post – “John Lewis’s greatest challenge – the omni channel customer experience” – where he touches one of my dearest topics.

I have been trying to evangelise my readers, clients and peers about this for some time: Multi-Channel is different from Omni-Channel. And that discrepancy can ultimately have an enormous impact on the customer experience.

We are in the digital age and the majority of organisations offer their customers a variety of channels to interact, providing a Multi-Channel service. But the truth is – and this is what my personal experience tells me – all channels are detached.

This is the slide that I usually include in my presentations:

Should technology help? Yes, definitely. Is technology helping? No, not really. Due to the fact that organisations use silo applications for different channels, departments, or lines of business. Normally those silo applications don’t speak with one another.

If organisations want to make those silo applications talk to one another they have to build some complex, expensive, time-consuming and clunky integrations. Usually it ends up not working that well and being far away from perfection.

The best solution is to adopt an Omni-Channel platform where all channels are connected, and everything is truly and natively joined-up. Where customers can use their preferred and most convenient channel, and agents have a sole way of deal with interactions, regardless of the channel.

Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service (aka Oracle Service Cloud) is certainly the best, and probably the only Omni-Channel platform in the market.

RightNow CX among the 2014 CRM Service Leaders

The CRM Magazine published an article “The 2014 CRM Service Leaders” coming out of their annual Service Awards. Oracle RightNow CX (aka Oracle Service Cloud) was again among the leaders, the winners and the ones to watch.

This is a summary of what I found interesting…

Customer Case Management

Microsoft Dynamics CRM: … Prior to the acquisition of Parature was missing core multichannel capabilities and knowledge management… [Parature] excellence at serving midmarket customers.

Oracle RightNow CX: highest scores were for depth of functionality… capabilities are strong… for firms wanting to streamline service and support to enable agents to handle multiple support channels.

Salesforce.com: highest score for company direction… not proven as a scalable B2C case management system… still missing key capabilities for success in the B2B world.

Web Support

Salesforce.com: struggled somewhat in the depth of functionality… great CRM functionality, but a poor multichannel customer interaction functionality.

Oracle RightNow CX: breadth of customer service functionality is excellent

Oracle Knowledge (InQuira): I’s the best-in-breed Web self-service solution; however, as a standalone solution, it is missing the escalation channels from knowledge.

Moxie Software: fairly basic Web self-service offering

eGain: good balance between cost and ability to customize

Contact Center Search

Salesforce.com: Though still fairly new, the Salesforce1 Service Cloud promises to improve search capability and make the process even more practical and intuitive for agents.

Coveo: has struggled to explain its very powerful technology and make its value resonate in the marketplace.

eGain: Though a very good product, it is not customer-customizable, and not a core selling feature.

Oracle Knowledge (InQuira): has a very powerful and very complex search engine, but its technology is essentially unchanged.

Oracle RightNow CX: following the acquisition of InQuira, Oracle is working toward de-emphasizing the search engine and slowly weaning users off.

Notice that CRM Magazine assessed the major vendors in 8 service categories. In here I just present 3 of those categories where RightNow CX and its direct competitors play. The scores were based on the following criteria: Reputation for customer satisfaction; Depth of functionality or services; Company direction; Technology costs over a 5-year period.

Contact Centre challenges for 2014 fit RightNow

In the article “Multichannel viewed as the biggest contact centre challenge of 2014” we could read that…

… A new report from Magnetic North questioned 100 call centre managers to find out what they consider to be the biggest tests heading their way in the coming 12 months. The top issues managers are preparing to square up to are:

1. Managing the customer experience across multiple channels (44%)
2. Ensuring technology keeps pace with changing customer behaviour (40%)
3. Driving operational efficiency and cost savings (34%)
4. Developing agent skills-sets (31%)
5. Making the transition to a Cloud-based contact solution (28%)

Contact Centre Managers priorities for 2014 are very curious, and it is very interesting to see how they fit into the solution that is better positioned to help them achieve their goals: Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service.

1. RightNow delivers seamless Customer Experience across every channel. It has out-of-the-box capabilities that help organisations deal with customers that interact through the Web, Email, Phone, Chat or Social Media. And desktop add-ins can be built and used to accommodate any other way of communicating, such as Letters, SMS, etc.

2. It enables organisations to be where their customers are, and serve them where and when they need. Providing a rich online Customer Experience so customers can research or resolve issues, from any device. And managing social interactions as a fully integrated part of that Customer Experience – with special emphasis in the biggest social network (Facebook).

3. RightNow also provides a better User Experience. Its user-friendly and easy-to-use interface with a very familiar look and feel, makes the agent training quick and painless, increasing adoption. It delivers an end-to-end management of the customer journey through unified records, interfaces, and knowledge, reducing the effort and improving efficiency.

4. It comprises a set of out-of-the-box tools (such as SmartAssistant or Standard Text) and procedural automation (such as Guided Assistance, Agent Scripts or Workflows), common to every support process, that empower agents. Helping them to service and resolve customer’s issues, regardless of the channel of interaction.

5. RightNow is an industry leading Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution, hosted in the Oracle cloud. Decreasing the total cost of ownership (TCO) and providing monthly subscription-based type license. It is very fast and easy to deploy and maintain. Also, as a cloud solution, it is easily scalable and effortless to expand.

#CX is not only applicable to Business

Customer Experience is not only applicable to B2C (Business to Consumer) or B2B (Business to Business), in order to increase loyalty and satisfaction, with the ultimate aim of growing profit.

It is also applicable to G2C (Government to Citizen), G2E (Government to Employee) or U2S (University to Student), in order to enhance the service and support, with the ultimate aim of providing well being.

G2C (Government to Citizen) example

U2S (University to Student) example

Customer, Experience and Multi-Channel

30 years ago we had only one channel to communicate: the Phone. 20 years ago Email was introduced and slowly became another available channel. In the last decade the amount of channels soared, and now we have Chat, Web Self-Service, Co-Browse, Social Media or SMS. And who knows what the next big thing is.

The customer’s channel preference is very diverse. And channel usage rates are changing very quickly in the last few years. Phone and Email are still the primary channels, but lately we have seen that in some areas/sectors/industries, Web Self-Service or Social Media are rising to overtake the “traditional” channels.

Customer’s satisfaction with the channels also changes reasonably depending on demography or area/sector/industry. Some people are glad to find the answers themselves; others to use guided assistance; others just like to have someone to do it for them. One thing is certain: everyone wants a consistent experience.

Every customer is expecting a personalised and consistent experience, no matter the channel they use to interact. And sometimes they want (or they need) to start an interaction in one channel and complete it in another channel, expecting the journey and the experience to be smooth and seamless. Therefore channel silos are not allowed.

Some interesting stats say that a very considerable amount of customers use 3 or more channels for any shopping transaction. The majority of customers use at least 3 channels for customer service related issues. And the average multi-channel customer spends 30% to 50% more than single channel customers.

Companies need to have a platform that enables multi-channel interactions; that provides the ability to respond and engage customers at any time on their preferred channel; that allows the management of cross-channel interactions; that uses the same process for handling all interactions across all touch-points.

Having such a platform will not only increase customer satisfaction and loyalty (driving more sales and profit) but also bring advantages to the companies in terms of cost, efficiency and effectiveness.

Let’s have a look at three important topics: Channel of choice; Complexity of the query; Cost of the interaction.

Channel
Companies need to be prepared to offer their customers all types of service, which needs to be consistent across all channels and touch points/devices. Customers need to be able to get knowledge at the point of need.

Complexity
Companies need to know the type of interactions they will have. They need to be aware of the complexity of their customer’s queries or issues and what that means in terms of value, resolution and volume.

And then be able to rightly map those types of interactions to the various channels available.

Cost
The choice of the right channel allows companies to make significant saves. E.g. by replacing Chat sessions regarding simple queries with Self-Service; by replacing Emails regarding complicated queries with Guided Assistance; by replacing Phone calls regarding complex issues with Chat.

Call Centres: Personalisation and Resolution

When you are a Consultant in the area of CRM and CX you tend to come across many Call Centres (also known as Contact Centres, Customer Service Centres…). I had the pleasure of seeing and working with some, and I had the displeasure of calling some others.

The main aim of a Call Centre is to provide Customer Service. And Customer Service is mainly provided to existing customers. It should be easier and less costly to get business from those customers than acquire new ones. Customer Service is therefore key.

The truth is Customer Service is the main reason why existing customers leave a company. Sometimes they leave because they found something cheaper, or because they found a better product or service. But the main reason is poor Customer Service.

Sometimes poor Customer Service may not have an immediate effect – I am not giving up my newly bought iPhone because of one poor experience – but it will definitely make the customer open to other brands, as soon as he comes across them or they approach him.

Customer Service is part of the overall Customer Experience. Actually, as I see it, it is a key part. Thus, Call Centres must be able to deliver a good Customer Service. Unfortunately the reality shows that most Call Centres cannot deliver a good service and experience.

They don’t know who we are despite our phone number is generally the same. They don’t know why we are calling despite we have chosen 3 options in the IVR. They don’t treat us as a valued customer although we are customers for a number of years.

This is something that can be amended, by implementing a Customer-Centric strategy and enabling Technology. With a mix of these two, any company will be able to deliver the key ingredients for a good Customer Service and Experience: Personalisation and Resolution.

To deliver Personalisation, the Call Centre advisor needs to treat the customer as a person (rather than an account number) and know his history with the company. For that, the company needs to empower the advisor with the necessary information and a 360° view of the customer.

It is crucial that the customer data is accessible, accurate and clean in the CRM system. The CRM system must be able to identify the customer regardless of the channel, and respond through his channel of choice. The CRM system should also route customers to the right queue/advisor.

To deliver Resolution, the Call Centre advisor needs to have the wisdom required to deal with any inquiry or issue, and the ability to do it as quickly as possible. For that, the company needs to empower the advisor with the necessary knowledge at a click of a mouse.

It is therefore critical that the CRM system has a comprehensive, rich and dynamic source of information able to leverage knowledge throughout the entire ecosystem (Customer Service and Self-service) delivering relevant in-time information when and where it’s needed.

Oracle RightNow CX (also known as Oracle Service Cloud) has all the necessary capabilities that would help a company deliver a great Customer Service and an outstanding Customer Experience.

How RightNow could have avoided another bad CX

A few days ago I shared in this blog a real experience with a telecom provider. It was another very bad customer experience that could easily be avoided or attenuated if the company (in this case, O2) was using the best technology, the right way.

RightNow Agent Desktop would have avoided the agent from treating me in a depersonalised way (!!) as if he didn’t know me as a customer or my history with the company. The Agent Desktop provides a 360° view of the customer and an end-to-end management of the customer journey through unified records, interfaces, and knowledge.

RightNow Chat would have avoided the agent from asking me again (!!) the type of tariff I had, once I had already filled the field “Type of Tariff” when requesting the chat. RightNow Chat is completely integrated in the Agent Desktop and immediately passes the customer’s information to the chat agent before the chat is initiated.

Also, RightNow Chat provides conferencing, transfer or supervisor monitoring capabilities, which could have been used by a) the agent, to call for help from a senior colleague/manager, b) the manager/supervisor, that whilst monitoring the chats found strange that a chat session was taking more than 1 hour (could even be notified of that fact).

RightNow SmartAssistant would have avoided the agent from sending me a huge amount of useless (!!) information after I explained my issue in detail. The RightNow SmartAssistant evaluates the written text in the transcript and comes up with a few answers (i.e. articles in the knowledge base) that are related and will most likely resolve the customer’s issue.

RightNow Knowledge Base would have avoided the agent from telling me I was wrong whilst showing ignorance (!!) of its own services. The RightNow Knowledge Base presents the same relevant and consistent knowledge across all channels of interaction, either for agents or customers, infusing knowledge from the entire ecosystem.

RightNow Standard Text would have avoided the agent from poor and pathetic (!!) writing. RightNow Standard Text can be used when responding to customer in chat sessions, in order to save time, eliminate errors, and give consistent answers. Agents can use hot keys as shortcut for inserting standard text, which can include merge fields/variables (e.g. the contact’s first name).

I’m pretty sure that, even without a very good Customer Experience strategy in place, the use of the best technology – Oracle RightNow CX – would make this experience a lot better.

O2: Another bad Customer Experience

Requested a chat session from O2 to resolve a simple issue. O2 uses LivePerson to chat. Before starting the session it asks the Name, Number and Type of tariff. I filled all the fields “Luis Melo“, “07445……” and chose “Pay Monthly“. The chat agent greeted me and asked what was my issue, which I exposed.

The agent asked me if it was for my PAYG number?! No, it’s not! a) I don’t have (never had) a PAYG number with O2, b) You have my name and number, so if you check my account you’ll not find any PAYG number, c) I just chose the option “Pay Monthly” before the chat started… “Pay Monthly” I said.

The first response was the worse response an agent can give to a customer these days: “Try again later“. Systems should not even allow these words to be written. This is the worse you can tell a customer. a) You’re not solving his problem, b) Your not giving a logical or rational answer.

I gave a very detailed explanation of my issue but the agent kept sending me huge amount of generic information that was not related nor helping. And despite I told him that it was not helping, he kept insisting that it should solve my issue. Until he said that what I was trying to do was impossible.

At this point I showed him an FAQ on O2 website that was saying the opposite. But it was not working, and that was my issue. So he asked me to let him check the FAQs and came back apologising. A funny moment after that, as he said he didn’t want me angry and would end up putting a smile on my face.

He actually did. Not because he sorted my issue but because he was pathetic. After telling me step-by-step what to do (replicating what I’ve done already many times) and failed, he told me to… “Try again later“!!… and with a puppy’s expression said he was sure that that should have been sorted.

The end of the story is: He put me on hold for a long time, asked me many times for patience, and didn’t solve my issue. After some time I quit. He was glad and suggested me to go to a store.

P.S. – Soon I will be posting how RightNow CX could avoid most of this hassle.

A smart investment in… RightNow CX

Recently I had one of the worse customer experiences ever with Vodafone UK (see previous post). As I said at the end, Vodafone UK has a gigantic task to try to deliver a good Customer Experience in order to acquire/retain customers.

This is something that can only be achieved with a big Cultural change, a huge Strategic shift, and a smart investment in Technology. Using a platform like Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service, Vodafone UK would be able to easily improve the Customer Experience and avoid some of the hassles they gave me…

RightNow Cloud Service: Being a cloud service, changes to the system can be made on the fly and without any down time. It is a robust solution with secure global access and a fully redundant architecture. Avoiding the the in-store system being down.

RightNow Contact Centre: An easy-to-use and user-friendly application with very intuitive and familiar look & feel, giving instant insight of the Customer’s history. Avoiding the in-store user or the contact centre agent to take a huge amount of time navigating the system to find information.

RightNow Agent Desktop: Provides a 360° view of the customer and an end-to-end management of the customer journey through unified records, interfaces, and knowledge. Avoiding the customer to be forced to tell his story over and over again, countless times.

RightNow Chat: Completely integrated in the Agent Desktop immediately passes the customer information to the chat agent before the chat is initiated. It is multi-device (PC, SmartPhone, Tablet) and provides conferencing, transfer, supervisor monitoring or standard response templates. Avoiding the chat agent having to ask the customer’s for his name/number again, sinking into lengthy conversations and taking a long time to transfer/conference.

RightNow CTI Integration: Provides an embedded call control within the Agent Desktop (CTI Media Bar), passes IVR and Customer data to the agent before the call is answered, and triggers rules, scripts or guided assistance. Avoiding the agent to ask the customer who he is, what’s his number and why is he calling.

RightNow Knowledge Base: A self-learning knowledge base that learns from every interaction and enables web self-service by leveraging relevant and in-time information in the Web or Mobile Customer Portal, offering the customer the possibility to self-serve and quickly resolve his query. Avoiding customers from choosing other (more expensive and time consuming) channels.

RightNow Incident Management: The Incident Messages Thread allows contact centre agents or users to log interactions from different channels (web, email, chat, phone, social media), but regarding the same issue, into the same Service record, creating a complete track of the customer’s issue history. Avoiding the agent having to search for previous history or asking the customer to repeat himself.

Vodafone UK: The worse Customer Experience

My mobile tariff with 3 was great for personal use, but I needed a different one for business purposes (more UK minutes, international calls, etc.). I did a research and decided to go for a monthly contract with Vodafone UK.

Interaction #1 (in-store)
Popped into a store and asked to buy a SIM card with a monthly contract. Apparently the system (Siebel CRM) was down so they were not able to give me what I wanted. Sold me a SIM card with a PAYG tariff, and asked me to return the next day.

Interaction #2 (in-store)
I returned to the same shop the next day. The system was already up and running but apparently didn’t allow the change from PAYG to monthly contract. The staff member tried to do it over the phone. 30 min later, asked me to come back the next day.

Interaction #3 (in-store)
The third time I went to the shop, the system was able to transfer my PAYG to a monthly contract, but there was another problem: Apparently my address was blacklisted (the only issue here is that addresses are no longer blacklisted, people are).

I sticked with the PAYG for 2 weeks whilst I tried to resolve this issue. The truth was the signal was awful. It was coming and going whilst I was sitting in the same place. I was not able to do/receive calls, the ones I received were dropped many times and I was not able to send or receive emails.

Obviously I was not satisfied. Therefore I went to an O2 store to double check their tariffs. O2 had a monthly contract that was similar to Vodafone’s but cheaper. I went for it. Bought a SIM card and signed a contract, with no issues. I now needed a PAC code to transfer my number.

Interaction #4 (Web)
Went to Vodafone UK website trying to find how could I get a PAC code. There were articles in the Knowledge Base explaining how to get PAC codes from other providers, but nothing about how to get them from Vodafone UK. As I could not find an answer to my question, requested a chat session.

Interaction #5 (chat)
The chat was provided by LivePerson. It requested my name and number prior to the chat. When the chat session started the agent asked my name and number again. I could not resolve my issue as the agent could not find my number in the system and the help line (phone) was already closed.

Interaction #6 (phone)
The next day, at 10am (opening hour), I called the help line to request the PAC code. The call cost me £0.25. Whilst I was explaining to the agent what I needed – despite he should’ve know from my latest unresolved interaction – the call was dropped due to lack of signal.

Interaction #7 (chat)
At 10h30 I went to Vodafone UK website and requested a chat session. Nancy – the agent – picked up and asked me my name and number, as well as my reason for calling. Again?! Ok, I repeated why I was calling. Nancy said she could not resolve my issue and had to transfer me to another team.

Interaction #8 (chat)
20 min (!!) later another chat agent greeted me. It was Deborah that asked me “Can you bear with me for a few moments while I read through your previous chat and have a look at your account please?”. After a few minutes she asked me if I had a PAYG – Seriously?! Didn’t you just looked into my account?! – and said that the previous agent had transferred the chat session to the wrong department, so she was going to transfer me again.

Interaction #9 (chat)
A couple of minutes later another agent, Avinash, came up asking me “How may I help you today?” and “could you please give me your number?” Again?! I repeated everything one more time. He was not able to locate my account in the system and asked me “Do you have a white SIM?”. Yes, I do. “That’s why I can’t see your account, it must be on the new platform and I do not have access”. Avinash apologised on behalf of the previous agents and transferred me again saying “This time you are in safe hands” he said “your query will be resolved and they will have a full record of this chat to pick up where we left so that you don’t have to repeat yourself”.

Interaction #10 (chat)
Vijay was the name of the 4th agent of the day, who asked me “Hello, how may I help you today?”. Again?! Really?! But your colleague just said you would have a full record to pick up where we left so that I wouldn’t have to repeat myself again!! I repeated everything all over again. It was 11h40 – 1 hour and 10 minutes (!!) after the first chat session started – when Vijay gave me the PAC code I needed.

This was the worse Customer Experience I’ve ever had with a mobile communications provider. And believe me I had many in Portugal, France, Spain or UK, with many other providers. The hassle to get a PAC code, for example, is unbelievable and unacceptable.

Vodafone UK customer-facing Sales teams seem to have an out-of-date and inefficient system (Siebel CRM) in-store. And the Customer Service teams seem to have disjointed departments and siloed systems. Also, Vodafone UK clearly has disrupted channels.

Judging by this experience, Vodafone UK teams have a gigantic task in front of them to try to create a great Customer Experience in order to acquire/retain customers. It is something that can only be done with a big cultural change, a huge strategic shift and a smart investment in technology.

P.S. – After this I received an SMS request for a Survey. Obviously the ratings I gave were low. Last question asked “Can you tell us the reasons for your ratings?“. I just replied with the link to this post. Hope they come and read it.