KPN – Brochure (Nuance)

The digital transformation of customer service P ROJ E C T PA RT N E R S

The digital transformation of customer service WRITTEN BY D a l e B e n to n PRODUCED BY A n d y L l oyd

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Martijn Franssen, Director of Digital Transformation, discusses how KPN’s digital transformation looks to deliver the best omnichannel experience to customers

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s the largest telecommunications provider in the country, KPN is well and truly the network of the Netherlands. For more than

135 years, KPN has set out to provide secure, reliable and future-proof networks and services to ensure that everyone is connected anytime and anywhere.

As with any technology company, the key to remaining successful has been one of evolution. Over the years, KPN has continuously evolved as a company, in order to continue to provide the services that its customers demand and the network that the Netherlands needs. Though the digital transformation is nothing new, it undeniably defines the conversation for many industries and definitely increases the pressure within KPN to continue - and even more to speed up - the adaptation process. “In order to fuel the transformation journey of KPN, we have to listen more carefully to what’s going on in the market.

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KPN

Martijn Franssen, Director of Digital Transformation

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We live in the information age. Our

own energy which appears to come from

customers have become streetwise; they

putting down a vision and start changing

possess more knowledge around a busi-

an organisation in order to realise it.”

ness than ever before, and, more impor-

So the time was right to return to this

tantly, they are more demanding as they

great company, which is undergoing a

can move to competitors at the click of a

significant change once again as it looks

button. As such, we have to think about

to create a seamless experience for its

how we can retain them. This places

customers. Franssen recognised this

greater emphasis and responsibility on

need and when he was brought in to lead

customer service. Because who else

this transformation, the end goal was

than its care representatives can truly

clear. “The overall goal is to be where our

represent the voice of the customer?”

customers are in such a way that they will

says Martijn Franssen, who is leading

have easy, seamless journeys across

the change within Customer Service as

all our channels driven by a digitalisa-

Director of Digital Transformation.

tion of our way of working,” he says.

With almost 20 years’ experience

“Make life easier and more personalised

working with KPN initially as a business

for the customer by becoming the best

controller and then cutting his teeth in

service provider in the Netherlands. This

a number of international roles within

helps retain your customers and drives

the media and the insurance industry,

your company value.” How he looked to

Franssen was given the opportunity by

achieve this was by a digital transforma-

KPN to deliver the digital transformation

tion of Customer Service, which was to

of customer service.

take place in three phases.

“Having worked with KPN previously,

The first phase was focused on

so much had changed in the company

boosting live chat. As KPN encour-

by the time I returned, particularly when

aged customers to start their jour-

it came to internal culture,” explains

neys on the website, it was also about

Franssen. “The company has become

acknowledging the fact that not all visi-

smaller, more lean and mean. Working

tors could easily navigate it and simply

in silos is history, it has become much

needed support in order to prevent

more open and collaborative. But also, the

them from losing trust and from picking

years in between have helped me find my

up their phone in case of a next issue.

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KPN

“Our belief was that we would serve

transformation speed has a lot to do

the people starting their journey online,

with being creative. It is about iden-

but we could also provide immediate

tifying opportunities and convincing

answers to customers that needed us

stakeholders on the basis of little bits

throughout their journeys. This then

of evidence in order to continue.”

would also allow us to improve the

In order to increase live chat volumes,

quality of the online journey, because

KPN shut down its email channel.

we could ask the customer immediately

Franssen admits this could arguably be

why they needed our help and what

seen as ‘unfriendly’ customer service

was missing on the website.”

but there was method in it. “We noticed

In order to establish a substantial

that there were a lot of high costs

population of live chat engagements,

attached to this asynchronous channel,”

serious investments were required

he says. “More importantly, customer

whilst not everyone was convinced that

satisfaction was quite low. So, there was

live chat was the way to go. There is

a clear incentive to close that channel

always the fear that opening an extra

and reinvest the resources into the live

channel will result in additional traffic.

chat population.”

“However, I don’t believe a customer

With steadily growing live chat

will contact KPN via any channel just for

volumes, KPN immediately began to

chitchat,” he says.

see major improvements in its Net

“What I became aware of during the last few years is that the

Promoter Score (NPS) as detractors were exchanged for promoters. This

“In order to fuel the transformation journey of KPN, we have to listen more carefully to what’s going on in the market” — MARTIJN FRANSSEN Director of Digital Transformation

w w w.th e in te r fa ce . n e t

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was even more the case once custom-

in cases where voice turned out to

ers were proactively offered a live chat.

be more effective within a specific

To further grow its live chat popula-

customer journey and vice versa,”

tion, attention turned to its web care

explains Franssen. “On top of that I

team. Taking a similar approach, KPN

expect that live chat will soon be canni-

looked at introducing live functional-

balised by messaging. It will be either

ity and introduced social chat, which

self service, voice or messaging.”

acted as a bridge from the social media

A transformation of this scale asks

channels to the live chat. “Once the

a lot of the existing workforce to rethink

customer had a transactional question, such as receive a copy of their invoice, we would offer them a link to live chat and start changing the channel,” says Franssen. “Once we did that, again we started to see the NPS improve and the costs go down.”

Live chat reached its peak of around 30.000 engagements a week once voice-to-chat was introduced within the Voice Response System (VRS) in case waiting time became too high. In hindsight, it became the trigger to start blending voice and non-voice skills to optimise variety for and productivity of our agents.

Franssen is also keen to highlight that it has never been about realising a certain volume of live chats, the goal was to make sure KPN’s customers could rely on the company and could be on channels which they are used to. “In the meantime, the volume has reduced 8

KPN

the way they work and take on new

as the organisation, as a means of fuel-

responsibilities. Some, naturally, may be

ling a belief in the journey. “It’s about

fearful or express hesitance in adopting

showing them the use cases and show-

this new way of working. This is where

ing them what we are going through

a strong sense of change management

with this transformation. By showing

and support is key. Franssen points to

evidence you start fuelling the belief

a number of ways in which he and his

that something’s happening and they

team communicate the value of the

can contribute,” he says.

transformation to the individual, as well

“We are doing this with our own people,

Conversational experts Customer Service, Wieger den Boer and Aviva Dassen

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Conversational development team Technium

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KPN

but also with our external partners such as Continuum and Webhelp. So, we visit the call centres at different locations and look at what we are doing and where, as customer service, we are heading. It’s also an opportunity to show why we need them because if we really believe that that voice of the customer should drive our change, then our people are the key representatives in engaging with the customer and providing us with the right signals for change.”

Phase two of the digital transformation saw Franssen focus more on the digitalisation of other customer touchpoints starting with voice, the biggest offline volume. KPN implemented speech recognition technology to track down the intent of the customer and to remove voice response system menus. “The problem was that too many people were involved and that it was only about routing to an available agent,” says Franssen.

“At my request, we minimised the number of stakeholders and organised a small agile organisation made up of internal staff and our supplier Telecats to ensure that the company could increase the velocity in how they developed the speech domain.

“They supported us in optimising the way we are routing our calls. By looking at the data and monitoring essential KPIs (like repeat callers, handling time, transfer rates, sales conversion), we try to improve our performance on a daily basis.” This approach, Franssen feels, has been incredibly successful, as it reflects the importance of partners acting as real partners and not simply as service delivery.

The smaller and dedicated team made it easier to have fruitful discussions about the direction KPN was heading w w w.k pn .com

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Walk-In Customer Service, S amuel van Gelder and Iris Kuit

in. Not only to ensure that routing quality would be higher but also to digitalise

online self care functionalities.”

Not only has the deflection rate

the voice response system. The motto

increased, it has also increased visibil-

was changed from routing to an availa-

ity on its customers due to boosting

ble agent into getting the best (digital)

customer recognition. This has enabled

solution. In many cases this would still

data driven routing decisions to ensure

be one of KPN’s agents, but increas-

that KPN will reduce customer effort

ingly it’s becoming directed to self care

while also optimising KPN’s results. “For

tooling as well. “This has taken a flight

example, if a customer calls us and we

by introducing our visual IVR (interac-

do see that he or she is suffering from

tive voice response) which turned call-

an outage, we will proactively inform the

ers into website visitors,” says Franssen.

customer and offer the opportunity to

“If a question concerns a topic which is

keep the customer informed,” he says.

related to a self care solution, we offer our

“Same applies for customers with billing

customers to accept an sms including

issues who need extra support to solve

a short URL to provide them with our

their difficulties; data tells us to transfer w w w.th e in te r fa ce . n e t

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them to a desk where we have more time

become hyper personalised using real-

to give the right support.”

time data insights in order to reduce

Customer data will soon become the

customer effort on the one hand, but also

main driver for business decisions; the

to spend our money wisely so we can

actual question of the customer will still

continue to offer premium services. In

be considered as crucial input, but will be

order to realise this, we need to enrich our

part of broader consideration. Franssen

customer data and increase our focus on

believes this will be a tough balancing act,

the usage of machine learning to help us

but a balancing act all the same. “KPN

identify what is good for which customer

offers everyone the highest standards

on a specific moment.”

possible, but at the same time the market

As for data, there is an important role

is changing and has changed radically,”

for customer service as well. “We use

he says. “There’s constant pressure on

our customer engagement to under-

margins and on costs, so we have to

stand who the customer is and what

become more intelligent. We have to

they really need through which we can

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KPN

“What I became aware of during the last few years is that the transformation speed has a lot to do with being creative. It is about identifying opportunities and convincing stakeholders on the basis of little proof points in order to continue” — MARTIJN FRANSSEN Director of Digital Transformation

confirm - or not - whether provided

learning and the increasingly availability

next best actions are sufficiently accu-

of real-time contextual data. Though it

rate. This is supervised learning with the

is still about recognising the customer

help of our customer agents. The effect

and their intent, it will be more interac-

is that customer service, perhaps more

tive than ever before. “We are creating

than ever before, is quickly moving the

the ability to track down the ques-

heart of the organisation.”

tion behind the question just like we

With the successful completion of

have done within Customer Service

phase one shift to online - and major

over the last decades. Not only on

inroads being made with phase two, it

the basis of a dialogue, but more and

became time to move on to the third

more by using customer journey data,”

phase, which is about the shift towards

explains Franssen.

automating the conversation with the

“In order to speed things up we again

customer. A shift driven by the rise of

started in our own domain within the live

natural language processing. machine

chat channel. It made sense because, in w w w.k pn .com

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“ The effect is that customer service, perhaps more than ever before, is fast moving towards the heart of the organisation” — MARTIJN FRANSSEN Director of Digital Transformation

customer service, we feel the pressure to

platform Nina made it possible to quickly

make sure we are effective and efficient.

put KPN’s customer service represent-

By introducing a chatbot and automating

atives in position so they could start

conversations, we are showing a good

building dialogues. “At the same time, the

business case for why we are doing it.” In

platform features helps our conversation

less than a year and a half, almost all chat

specialist to optimise the conversation in

sessions start in the bot. This already

order to minimise customer frustration

already accomplishes a double-digit

as we acknowledge that our customer

deflection by offering self care, whilst

also needs to get used to a chatbot,”

customer satisfaction remains high.

explains Franssen.

One of the reasons that this approach

The collaboration with Nuance is

has been successful is a result of KPN’s

based on a true partnership as well,

partnership with Nuance. Nuance’s

where both parties closely work

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KPN

Myron Laagland, Product Owner Conversational Customer Service

together to increase the maturity of the

across all the touchpoints, I am confi-

chatbot. “Over the coming months, this

dent we can truly improve our customer

journey will evolve further, our chatbot

service as we can offer an unambiguous

will become a digital assistant becom-

though personalised customer journey

ing the impersonation of this conver-

optimising the deployment of self-care

sational phase. An assistant which will

tooling in combination with our ever-

be equipped with the same tools and

needed and appreciated emphatic and

insights as our customer representa-

intelligent customer service experts.”

tives, and which will be connected to a number of touchpoints across KPN like our messaging channels, TV and voice,” “If we manage to create the basis for a true digital assistant having its presence w w w.k pn .com

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