Category: Web Experience

Enabling B2B global customer support

In the CX community this is not news. When it comes to Customer Experience, our expectations are set by the interactions we have with companies like Amazon and Apple (companies on the B2C – Business to Consumer market).

When at work, dealing with other companies (in B2B – Business to Business scenarios), we also expect the same level of service, the same smooth and simple Customer Experiences, the same innovation and type of engagement.

I’m lucky to work with companies in both spaces. One of the B2B companies I work with is Sandvik – a global high-tech and engineering company founded in Sweden in 1862, with 40,000 employees and presence in 160 countries.

My team at Capventis had the pleasure to work with their Global Technical Support Team (for Mobile Mining & Rock Technology), enabling Zendesk – and it’s Support, Chat, Talk, Guide products – to allow them to provide seamless, effortless, convenient omni-channel support to their customers.

The video above shows Sandvik introducing the new Digital Helpdesk in a mission “To provide world leading customer service through a remote 24-hour technical support desk“

Note: Sandvik are specialist in “Tools and systems for industrial metal-cutting; Equipment and tools, service and technical solutions for the mining and construction industries; Advanced stainless steels and special alloys as well as products for industrial heating“.

“Fast-Forward” on Retail Experience

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The COVID-19 pandemic will have a “fast-forward” effect on certain things, namely in the way we shop with retailers. The transformation was already in progress, but will now happen faster than expected.

Many consumers, particularly in the biggest cities, already shop mostly online and have orders delivered by retailers at home – groceries, clothing, electronics, furniture, etc. The pandemic forced most consumers to do the same.

Some consumers suddenly realised that you can actually do shopping online, having the same offering. Others realised how secure and comfortable it is. Others even noticed how effortless and seamless it can be.

On the retailers side, those who thought it would be hard, and procrastinated their journey to be on-line, finally adopted technology, subscribed to e-commerce platforms (like Shopify) and are now in a much better position to compete.

Opening an online operation, allowing consumers to buy from “distance” also required a customer service setup. Again, many retailers accelerated the adoption of multi-channel customer interaction technology (like Zendesk).

The way we shop, will surely change for good. Going forward, consumers will shop much more online (accelerating the trend of the last decade) and only go to brick & mortar shops when the need exceeds “shopping”.

What I mean is… many people go out shopping (in malls, etc.) not only because they need to buy something, but because they are looking for social interaction and distraction, with family or friends.

This is not news, and that is exactly why malls and retail parks started opening restaurants, cinemas, bowling alleys, entertainment venues for kids, etc. People go there not only (sometimes not even) to buy stuff, but rather to socialise.

The same will now apply to the wider industry – big, medium and small retailers. Meaning everyone will have to do something to attract people to their shops. Of course not all can or have size to build cinemas, so they will have to build Experiences.

Big successful retailers are already pioneering this. Apple designed all their shops with a focus on customer’s experiences. Offering a modern and innovative environment, that unlocks creativity, inspires learning, and encourages connections.

But how do you know what “experiences” will attract customers? Once more, technology can help. Experience management platforms (like Qualtrics) allow companies to reach out and understand customers’ needs, wants, drivers.

That insight can then be turned into action to baseline experiences and improve continuously.

Oracle Service Cloud 18B release now available (Part I)

The 18B release of Oracle Service Cloud (OSvC) is now generally available and it brings some very interesting new features and enhancements. I will break them down in separate posts. This is the first post.

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Chat – Virtual Assistant

One of those exciting enhancements is the launch of the Virtual Assistant (VA). Some of you may be asking “wasn’t the Virtual Assistant launched 5 years ago?“. Yes, back in Nov 2013 Oracle announced the VA which, at the time, was based on a separate product called Intent Guide and forced users to use a different application (login and user interface) to configure it.

The 18B release brings a much more integrated, seamless and powerful VA capability, which can be accessed, configured and fine tuned by OSvC administrators, using a VA editor in the OSvC interface. Nonetheless, it is still based on the aforementioned Oracle RightNow Intent Guide Cloud Service (find here the admin user guide).

This enhanced VA will hopefully be a step in the right direction and allow companies to not only decrease the volume of chat sessions that require an agent, but also improve the customer experience.

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Simple questions with straightforward answers – aka high volume/low value queries – should be picked up and answered by the VA, using the information in the knowledge base. Making service more efficient and effective.

The new (or enhanced) OSvC VA allows you to configure escalation rules, that will route the chat session to the right queue and agent, when the VA cannot answer, as well as pass the conversation thread to the agent, for context.

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Additionally it allows you to test scenarios and provides real-time dashboard so you can monitor performance and questions being asked, as well as identify new content that can be added to the VA and knowledgebase.

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In order do use the VA you should ask Oracle (your account manager) to enable it and then perform the following steps:

  1. Assign the Virtual Assistant Edit permission to your profile (you will find this permission in Profile > Permissions > Administration tab)
  2. Add the Virtual Assistant editor to a navigation set (you will find this in Navigation Sets > Configuration > Components > Common)
  3. Create the VA profile and account (to define the VA name that will display to customers e.g. “Siri”), as well as the VA chat queue (which will handle incoming chats and escalation)
  4. Create chat rules to route virtual assistant chats and escalate virtual assistant chats to agents when necessary.

Note: You can have only one VA account and one VA queue. The VA profile, account, and queue cannot be deleted. However, account and queue names can be changed.

Knowledge Base Search – How does it work?

This is a question that several of our customers have asked us, when they start to build their own knowledge base of answers, to enable customer web self-service.

The knowledge base search (knowledge foundation) is not a simple mechanism. That is why it is so powerful, intelligent, dynamic and self-learning.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so I decided to put together a diagram that depicts the process, and below leave you with a few definitions to be better understand the different components.

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Weight

When a search is performed, each keyword and/or phrase entered by the customer is compared to the contents of the answers.

The Weight is a numerically calculated value, based on the number of occurrences, capitalisation, and location of a word. It is equal to the sum of the weights of all the matched words from the search.

The location of the word is important. It is ordered and weighed as per the diagram – e.g. words that match the Summary field will have higher weights than those that appear in the Answer field.

Computed Score

The Computed Score of an answer is usually the same as its Score, unless its Display Position is set to fix it at top/bottom. In that case, the Computed Score is calculated using the score of the answers located at the top or bottom of the list.

To better understand, if a new answer is created, and set with Display Position = “Fixed at the top”, once it is published, its Score will be zero, but the Computed Score will be larger than the highest score for all the published answers.

Score

The Score is a calculated value that ranks the order of answers, and indicates the usage of the answer, as well as how helpful that answer has been to customers. It is calculated based on the Solved Counts:

  • 75% of the score is based on Solved Count, linked to customer usage
  • 25% of the score is based on Solved Count, linked to agent usage

An answer with a large score indicates that several customers (and/or agents) have viewed that answer and that the answer was somehow useful to them.

Solved Count

The Solved Count collects information about the usefulness of answers in the Knowledge Base. Two types of data is gathered:

  • Implicit data – compiled by how customers select and view answers. If a customer views an answer, the solved count of the 1st answer is increased, but not as much as the 2nd viewed answer. In other words, the answer that the customer views last receives the largest solved count increase.
  • Explicit data – compiled by how customers rate individual answers – from the responses to the question “Is this answer helpful?”

 

Oracle RightNow CX – Web Experience

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The Web Experience provides a rich online customer experience solution so consumers can research, purchase, or resolve issues from any device.

It sets a standard for best-in-class service by allowing customers to interact on their own terms while companies increase conversions and lower service costs.

Web Experience services:

  • Intent Guide
  • Web Self Service
  • Mobile
  • Chat
  • Co-browse
  • Email Management