Contact Centre Industry Report 2020

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INTERVIEW

FEATURE

KBC Bank Ireland: Diversity in collaboration

Marks and Spencer: 10 minutes with Bogdan Grigorescu

The Guardian: Fixing the fundamentals

Bob Stella shares how his team are utilising diversity in collaboration to help prepare for the contact centre of the future.

Bogdan Grigorescu tells us about the AI platform behind Marks and Spencer’s excellent customer service.

Ben Lappin discusses how The Guardian has transformed its customer service through perfecting the basics and prioritising the customer experience.

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EngageCustomer.com

CONTACT CENTRES: THE BEATING HEART

VIEW FROM THE CHAIR

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Gerry Brown Shares his highlights from the conference.

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INTERVIEW

Micro Scooters UK: 10 minutes with Ben Gibson Ben Gibson gives insight into his case study and role.

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CASE STUDY

BEAUTY BAY: Taking the digital approach Gavin Scott explains how reducing customer contact channels has improved the company’s customer service.

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About Odigo

Enterprise cloud contact centre Customer experience as it was meant to be ■ Omnichannel availability ■ Automated routing ■ Conversational continuity ■ Human / self-service balance

Odigo, a Capgemini brand formerly known as Prosodie-Capgemini, helps large organisations connect with individuals through world-class, cloudbased contact centre solutions. Its cutting-edge, proprietary technologies enable a seamless, efficient, omnichannel experience for its customers and a satisfying, engaging experience for service agents.

Odigo serves more than 400,000 agents and business users globally. With a 25year history of industry firsts, Odigo has more than 200 clients around the world.

Visit us at www.odigo.com/uk Contact us at contact.uk@odigo.com +44-330-588-8000 Odigo UK 40 Holborn Viaduct London EC1N 2PB

Odigo

Odigo UK @odigo @odigo_tm

This document contains information that may be privileged or confidential and is the property of Odigo.

Copyright © 2020 Odigo.

All rights reserved.

CONTACT CENTRE EDITORIAL Elizabeth Akass Editor lizzie.akass@ebm.media 01932 302 113 Steve Hurst Editorial Director steve.hurst@ebm.media 01932 506 304

MARKETING Katie Donaldson Marketing Manager katie.donaldson@ebm.media 01932 506 302 Sophie Smith Marketing Executive sophie.smith@ebm.media 01932 302 112 Hannah Mulea Marketing Executive hannah.mulea@ebm.media 01932 302 111

SPONSORSHIP Dominic Stone Sponsorship Sales dominic.stone@ebm.media 01932 506 303 Dale Ayliffe Sponsorship Sales dale.ayliffe@ebm.media 01932 302 110 Dan Moran Sponsorship Sales dan.moran@ebm.media 01932 506 303 James Baughn Sponsorship Sales james.baughn@ebm.media 01932 506 308 Kieran Holmes Sponsorship Sales kieran.holmes@ebm.media 01932 302 114

MEMBERSHIP Jamie Ross Delegate Sales jamie.ross@ebm.media 01932 506 306 Michael Duckham Delegate Sales mike.duckham@ebm.media 01932 506 307

MANAGING DIRECTOR

Welcome A very warm welcome to this year’s Future of the Contact Centre Conference Industry Report. We hope you enjoy what’s inside!

I

t has been a delight to put this edition together as we have had the fantastic opportunity to work with experts from industry-leading brands in the customer service space, sharing their insights and success stories.

From the world of beauty, Gavin Scott explains how BEAUTY BAY gave its customer contact model a digital makeover by removing its call centre and maximising its digital contact channels, providing both personal customer service through agents and introducing an AI self-service option.

Opening the door to one of the world’s leading news organisations, Ben Lappin shares how The Guardian transformed its relationships with its customers by perfecting the basics of customer service before exploring more complex customer success models.

From the banking industry, Bob Stella from KBC Bank Ireland gives insight into how his team are taking a forward-thinking approach by using diversity in collaboration to help prepare for the contact centre of the future.

We also sat down with Bogdan Grigorescu from Marks and Spencer, and Ben Gibson from Micro Scooters UK, for two Q&As giving us an inside look at how these organisations make their customer service models so successful.

Furthermore, our brilliant Hall Chair, Gerry Brown, shares his highlights from the day, and you can find the event feedback from our delegates inside as well.

In addition, we have also included some key recent news stories from the customer

engagement space that may spark your interest.

It has never been more important for companies to think ahead in their approaches to contact centres and adapt to what will work best for their industry. As discussed in this report, for some companies a fully digital approach is the most efficient and customer-focused way to progress, and for others it is imperative that phonelines remain open alongside digital advancements so that every customers’ needs are met. In either case, for customers to truly ‘be at the heart of everything’ a company does, customer experience needs to be a top priority for the whole organisation.

In the ever-evolving and increasingly digital world of customer service, it has never been more important to learn from brands excelling in this area. With this in mind, we hope you find this Industry Report informative and interesting.

Happy reading!

Elizabeth Akass Editor

Nick Rust nick.rust@ebm.media 01932 506 301

EngageCustomer.com Engage Business Media Ltd, Nicholson House, 41 Thames Street, Weybridge, Surrey, KT13 8JG. Disclaimer: While every effort has been made to ensure accuracy in the compilation of this publication, the Publishers cannot be held liable for errors and omissions. ©COPYRIGHT: Engage Business Media Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior consent in writing to the publisher.

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Monday 7 December 2020 Riverbank Park Plaza, London

Tickets £995

THREE SEMINAR HALLS • 15 TOPIC STREAMS • 800+ DELEGATES • ROUND TABLE SESSIONS SPRING 2020

01

CONTACT CENTRE NEWS

B&Q reopens stores and more businesses to follow B&Q has reopened dozens of UK stores as lockdown measures remain in place. After a trial period, 61 shops, including those in Cardiff, Manchester and Aberdeen, have been allowed to reopen.

The DIY group said it has brought in “social distancing controls”, such as capping the number of customers instore. Other UK firms, such as Aston Martin and Taylor Wimpey, said they would return to work in May. B&Q had been closed since the end of March after the government introduced lockdown measures to try to contain the spread of Covid-19.

However, hardware stores were included on the government’s list of essential retailers that were allowed to trade under the restrictions.

The DIY chain said that 14 of its stores would reopen, followed by a further 61 sites. Customers had been able to place orders online and collect goods in the shops.

In the newly re-opened stores, perspex screens will be fitted to checkouts and two-metre floor markers will indicate the distance shoppers should maintain from each other.

The announcement also saw complaints that the retailer would be allowed to sell plants at its sites which have garden centres.

The Horticultural Trades Association (HTA) recently told the BBC that millions of plants and shrubs might have to be binned as, unlike hardware firms, garden centres were deemed non-essential.

Return to production UK manufacturers and housebuilders announced plans to kickstart production during the lockdown.

Luxury carmaker Aston Martin said it would reopen its St Athan plant on 5 May after it had temporarily suspended all manufacturing operations in the UK at the end of March.

Housebuilder Taylor Wimpey also plans to restart work on most of its building sites across England and Wales in May. Its staff will follow new safety guidelines, while subcontractor work will resume the following week.

Peter Redfern, Taylor Wimpey’s chief executive said: “In the period while our sites have been closed, trading has inevitably been impacted. However, we are still seeing continued demand for our homes and our sales teams have been selling homes remotely, and digitally, week to week.”

He added that the firm’s show homes and sales centres would remain closed, most likely until social distancing measures are relaxed.

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Retail sales plunge at record rate as lockdown hits UK retail sales fell a record 5.1% in March as many stores shut up shop in the face of the coronavirus lockdown. The figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show the steepest sales fall since it started collecting the data in 1996.

Food and online shopping rose, and alcohol sales jumped by 31%. But clothes sales tumbled by 34%.

Online shopping as a proportion of all retail reached a record high of 22%, the ONS said.

“Retailers are in crisis mode as the impact of Covid19 has obliterated sales to new record-lows,” said Richard Lim, chief executive of Retail Economics.

The data comes amid dire estimates for the performance of the UK economy amid the lockdown.

One of the Bank of England’s top policymakers warned that the UK faces its worst economic shock in several hundred years.

Jan Vlieghe, a member of the BoE’s interest-rate

setting committee, said that “early indicators” suggest the UK was “experiencing an economic contraction that is faster and deeper than anything we have seen in the past century, or possibly several centuries”.

He did, though, say there was “in principle” a good chance that the UK would return to its “pre-virus trajectory once the pandemic is over”.

For industries like retail, customer behaviour may never be the same.

“We don’t expect the pattern of post-lockdown spending to be exactly the same as before, with our latest survey indicating that consumers intend to reward more responsible retailers,”said Lisa Hooker, consumer markets leader at accountants PwC. “Particularly those who looked after their staff, and shop more on their local high streets and with smaller or independent retailers, giving some more hope to many of the hardest-hit operators.”

Post Office to deliver cash to the vulnerable The Post Office has redesigned its overnight travel money delivery service to get cash to the most vulnerable people in England. Some shielded individuals who must stay at home during the coronavirus outbreak are being contacted by the government to ensure they have access to cash.

Those with Post Office Card Accounts can have cash delivered to their door by the following day. It is one of many schemes to ensure people are not financially isolated.

A range of supermarkets have introduced volunteer cards, which operate in a similar way to gift cards, allowing people to shop for a neighbour without having access to their bank card.

High Street bank NatWest is also introducing a “companion card” – allowing people in extended isolation

to give trusted volunteers a way to pay for their essential goods.

The card can be topped up with up to £100 and is associated with the customer’s existing bank account but kept separate on the bank’s systems. It does not share a PIN or long card number with the customer’s existing debit cards and cash machine withdrawals are restricted to £50.

The Post Office has already extended a single-use voucher scheme, with allows volunteers to withdraw cash from post office counters for vulnerable people.

Following criticism, it has now ensured all Post Office counters are fitted with protective glass to reduce the risk of infection between postmasters, postmistresses and customers and volunteers in branches.

Insurers estimate virus payouts to UK firms to be £1.2bn Payouts to UK firms over coronavirus could cost £1.2bn, initial estimates from the Association of British Insurers (ABI) indicate. Close to £900m will go to a small number of firms that have infectious disease insurance, the ABI says.

Watchdogs are predicting a rise in disputes between companies and insurers over whether their cover includes the financial fallout of Covid-19.

The Treasury Select Committee is urging insurers to be fair with claimants.

Most of the £1.2bn figure is made up of business interruption insurance, but only to those companies which took out specialist policies, such as Wimbledon organisers the All England Club, ABI chief executive Huw Evans explained why some claims will not result in a payment to firms.

“Most business interruption insurance policies that most businesses have are very much designed to protect them from fire and floor every day risks that protect their businesses and in the small number of cases it’s designed to cover illnesses that come on your premises for a short duration they’re not intended and not priced to cover a global pandemic.”

However, Mr Evans also said there will be claims that have to go to arbitration between insurers and claimants over whether they are covered for the pandemic.

If insurers and companies cannot settle a dispute between themselves it goes to the Financial Ombudsman to sort it out.

The ABI says its early estimate also includes a record £275m paid to customers in cancellation claims on travel insurance, and £25m for claims relating to weddings, school trips and events.

The initial estimate of £1.2bn in payouts does not

include claims made through the major insurance market Lloyd’s of London.

Commenting on the ABI’s claims, Commons Treasury Select Committee chair Mel Stride said MPs had heard of many UK businesses struggling to get money from their insurers.

“The ABI has estimated that its members will pay out £900m in business interruption claims relating to coronavirus.

“Yet, the Committee continues to receive evidence concerning the difficulties that firms are facing in making a successful claim.

“For example, [Pub and dining firm lobby group] UKHospitality told us that 71% of its members have had claims rejected, with only 1% having any success.

“There may be many instances where individuals and businesses believe they are covered, but in reality may not be.

“However, we are concerned that the insurance sector goes the extra mile in meeting claims wherever possible.

For example, where there may be grey areas within policies.”

Last week the Financial Conduct Authority ordered insurance companies to pay out claims to firms “as soon as possible” or explain themselves to the watchdog.

The British Chambers of Commerce’s head of economics, Suren Thiru, said cash flow was an ‘urgent concern’ for its member businesses “so it is particularly disappointing that many are facing an uphill struggle to access such a vital lifeline.

“The insurance industry has the opportunity to demonstrate that it is there for our business communities when they need it most – and work together with government to help their customers weather this unprecedented economic crisis.”

SPRING 2020

CONTACT CENTRE NEWS

PPI deadline prompted millions of successful new cases Payment protection insurance (PPI) was mis-sold to nine out of 10 people who complained about their policy in final months before a compensation deadline. PPI was designed to cover loan repayments when policyholders fell ill, had an accident, or lost their jobs.

Up to 64 million policies were sold, mostly between 1990 and 2010, but it proved to be the UK’s biggest financial mis-selling scandal. The City regulator said it had now been brought to an “orderly conclusion”.

However, some cases remain unresolved and campaigners have argued that last summer’s deadline to make PPI complaints came too early.

PPI policies were mis-sold to people who did not want or need them, or who would not be covered.

Banks, building societies and other credit providers have paid an astonishing £38bn in compensation to those who were mis-sold PPI and made a claim. The typical payout was £2,000.

Every time Michele Barker starts the engine of her car she knows that PPI fuelled her purchase. The 59year-old, from Gravesend, had a PPI policy on a credit card for 20 years that would never have paid out. After making a claim herself through the Resolver website, she was awarded compensation of £22,500.

“It was a jaw-dropping amount,” she told the BBC last year, with the total bulked up by the interest that providers are duty-bound to add.

“I put some of the money towards buying a boring, new Vauxhall Corsa, and it meant my husband could buy a new van as his had been stolen.”

The City regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), has published a report into its awareness campaign about the PPI claims deadline of 29 August last year.

Following a late rush, this deadline was effectively extended to November.

In its report, the FCA said that 6.7 million decisions about complaints were finalised between July 2018 and November 2019. About 1.7 million of them (26%) were cases when people had not had a PPI policy.

Of the remaining five million, 87% were found to have been mis-sold their policy, leading to compensation payouts of more than £5bn.

The report again revealed the extent to which claims management companies (CMCs) made huge batches of complaints on behalf of consumers. They took a cut of any payout.

Critics argue that CMCs were never needed because people could make their own claims, but the companies say many of these people would never have claimed at all.

The FCA report revealed that 92% of enquiries about whether somebody had a PPI policy were made by claims companies in the final months before the deadline, mostly in bulk spreadsheets.

Nearly half (45%) of cases that were full compensation claims were conducted through CMCs. The banking industry lobbied the FCA hard to call a deadline to PPI claims, which the regulator eventually agreed to. Some consumer groups said that people could lose out on money they were entitled to as a result.

In its report, the FCA claimed its decision to set a deadline was appropriate.

“We consider that, overall, the PPI issue has been brought to an orderly conclusion in a way that has secured appropriate protection for consumers and enhanced the integrity of the UK financial system,” it said. “This will help to rebuild public trust in the retail financial sector.”

SPRING 2020

John Lewis to allow virtual access from home John Lewis is boosting support for ‘Virtual Britain’ by transforming and adapting its in-store services and taking them online to meet the evolving needs of customers in isolation.

The free and bookable, advice-driven appointments will enable the retailer to provide core services to support the nation during lockdown, maintaining its ambition to be there every step of the way for its customers.

Providing advice, inspiration and support, talented and specialist Partners will be on hand to guide customers, whether it’s welcoming a new addition to the family or advice on interior solutions for the home.

A brand new online hub on JohnLewis.com – “Your Partners Through It all” – is also available for anyone looking for tips, inspiration and activities online.

Customers can access a variety of content on both JL.com and Waitrose.com including crafting ideas, creative cooking, as well as gardening and home interior inspiration.

Customers will be able to book free, one-to-one video appointments with knowledgeable experts all from the comfort of their own sofa. The initial launch will include virtual nursery, home design and personal styling advice with further services, inspirational talks and learning sessions planned to launch at the end of April.

For parents-to-be, advisors can answer questions, discuss the best products and help them navigate all the information and advice on essentials during a one-hour video call. Following the call, further information and a personalised shopping list will be emailed to help the preparations new parents will be making from home.

Customers booked-in for store appointments due to take place since stores have temporarily closed are being offered the virtual option.

Similarly, expert interior advice with a Home Design Stylist to help customers during lockdown by providing home inspiration, support and advice – ranging from repurposing ideas and tips to make their space more comfortable, creating an area that is flexible for work and feels like a sanctuary right now or to tackle a new interiors project.

During a on-hour video call customers can walk

and talk through their spaces with the Stylist and discuss inspiration. The Stylist will spend some time pulling together a mood board, ideas and shopping list, sending directly to a customer following the call.

For those seeking wardrobe advice, Expert Personal Stylists from the John Lewis Style Studios will offer appointments to support customers who have found themselves with extra time to declutter and organise their cupboards and drawers.

Providing guidance on key staples and tips to help streamline wardrobes, the stylist will also be on hand to help customers re-discover treasured items and build outfits. The video appointment is bookable via the stylist’s John Lewis Instagram account.

Stylists will follow up the appointment with a personalised email detailing all that was discussed.

Stylists will also be hosting style Q&As on their Instagram accounts as well as sharing useful and inspirational styling content.

Peter Cross, Director of Customer Experience at John Lewis and Waitrose, comments: “We are a diverse, resilient and strong business, and are wholeheartedly committed to supporting the wellbeing of our customers at this time. Through the power of technology, we have carefully curated these free one-to-one virtual appointments to reflect the needs of the nation during this national crisis. We have gathered our experts from across the country to offer these services initially across nursery, home and styling, with future plans to extend our services across nutritional advice, wine tastings, and tech support to name a few.”

JohnLewis.com has also been a go-to destination for customers looking for daily essentials. The retailer has seen a large number of customers shopping for home office equipment including desks, chairs and laptops as the nation adapts to working from home. Crafting kits and puzzles have also seen sales similar to Christmas as families keep themselves busy during lockdown. The closure of beauty salons and hairdressers across the country has seen a spike in demand for personal care items and hair removal products are up more than eightfold, while men’s grooming, including hair clippers have seen sales up nearly 200%.

Airlines urge chancellor to extend job support scheme Airline industry bosses have urged Chancellor Rishi Sunak to extend his job retention scheme beyond June. Aviation industry body Airlines UK said airlines hit by coronavirus would face “a renewed cash crisis” if the scheme were withdrawn prematurely.

The Treasury is currently paying most of the wages of nearly four million staff, working across the economy, who have been put on temporary leave. Separately, an all-party group of MPs has called for a bailout of aviation.

However, the group of 20 MPs said in a letter to Mr Sunak that any support package offered to airlines and travel companies should come with stringent environmental conditions.

The letter said: “If public money is used to save them, they must be required by law to do more to tackle climate change.

“They must be obliged to follow in the footsteps of many in the industry that have implemented ambitious carbon offsetting schemes.”

On Sunday, Virgin Atlantic said it was still in talks with the UK government about a coronavirusrelated bailout. Many airlines have been struggling as revenues have dropped amid travel bans.

In its own letter to the chancellor, Airlines UK said it expected that once coronavirus restrictions were eased, the return to normality for international aviation would be “gradual rather than sudden” and that carriers would increase capacity “incrementally”.

Airlines UK said that it believed the job retention scheme would need to be extended beyond June.

It said the government should consider “tapering” the scheme or reviewing it on a sector-by-sector basis.

Otherwise, it said, aviation would be “facing a cliff-edge post-June, whilst services are scaled up”.

The job retention scheme was originally intended to cover 80% of furloughed workers’ wages for March, April and May, but has since been extended until the end of June.

According to the UN’s civil aviation body, ICAO, international air passenger traffic in the first three quarters of 2020 could drop by as many as 1.2 billion travellers, or by two-thirds.

Many in the airline industry believe it could take up to three years to get back on track. However, last week Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary said he expected to see a much faster recovery, subject to an effective coronavirus vaccine.

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CONTACT CENTRE VIEW FROM THE CHAIR

Gerry Brown: Future of the Contact Centre Conference I was delighted to have the opportunity to chair Hall 2 at the 2020 Future of the Contact Centre Conference. Once again, the presenters provided a fascinating and absorbing insight into the changing world of the contact centre and the elements shaping its future. The theme was Contact Centres – The Beating Heart and it was clear that there was great energy and spirit pulsing through each of the presentations and one heart breaking, but ultimately happy story

T

he plenary sessions kicked of with the always entertaining Nicola Millard from BT whose latest presentation, The Autonomous Customer, featured as its major theme: Easy experiences still matter.

Nicola’s key message was that while omni-channel and the various self-service options available continued to be popular choices, the phone was still an important and widely used medium in the contact centre across all demographics and organisations This really set the stage for the balance of the day and the various topics that covered the full spectrum of omni-channel, digital capabilities and the human touch, and how they play a key role in Customer Experience innovation and transformation.

CX Innovation and Transformation Following the break, in Hall 2, Ben Lappin from The Guardian Group, whose topic, making your contact centre heard in organisations that are not yet customer-centric, demonstrated the importance of using metrics to focus attention on the contact centre. But not on service levels or contact volumes, but by reporting on value added by the contact centre, making the problem human and looking beyond data to real experiences anyone can empathise with.

Next up was Ed Creasey from Calabrio, who provocatively stated, how agents are going to save the (Customer Service) world and shared his thoughts on the importance of employee engagement to achieve that goal. In particular, by simplify your employee engagement tools. To allow them to Automate, Analyse and Engage, you could provide flexibility without affecting customer service levels and empower employees to understand and improve their performance.

Maintaining the employee engagement theme were Mary Cope & Gavin Morden from The Share Centre, a great double act who presented a powerful story about growing and developing the business leaders of tomorrow clearly and how their approach to leadership, followership and partnership in our customer facing teams (and the overall business) is driving increased service excellence for their customers. In a nutshell, their People First’ approach ensures they get the right team

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resulting in stronger shared values and behaviours that are reflected in the service delivery to their customers.

We were then taken on the Contact Centre & the Customer/employee journey by industry veteran, Neil Titcomb from Odigo, who in an entertaining and valuable presentation focused on exceeding customer experience expectations across all generations and creatively demonstrated how each generation has a different emotional bias towards technology. Neil neatly joined the dots to show how this differential also exists in contact centres and the importance of the emotional connection of advisors to customer that can keep your customers and agents emotionally satisfied will pay dividends.

We also welcomed back another FOCC star turn in the form of Andrew McGuigan from Microsoft who brough us yet another inspiring story about Technology, Customers & Colleagues.

He began by suggesting that customer needs have changed and become more complex and demanding. Having accepted that, he presented a simple but compelling four-point plan to address this: 1. CX Professionals are driving some of this complexity and they should own and resolve this 2. Connected customers need consistent experiences – we need to make it hard to reinforce negative messages 3. We created the tools to solve these issues – now we just need to use the right ones in the right way 4. Hiring and listening to the right people is critical.

Simples!

Then taking us smartly and linguistically to the

SPRING 2020

CONTACT CENTRE

Gerry Brown, Chief Customer Rescue Officer, The Customer Lifeguard

lunch break, Edmund Ovington, from Unbabel & Paula Kennedy-Garcia, from Concentrix showed that by using the power of AI and Gig-economy, brands who recognise the need for always open personalised service will have the opportunity for truly flexible support teams that can span in house of outsourced channels, but that will service existing and emerging digital channels, 24/7 and in all languages.

Who said language or time zones had to be a barrier?

Showing that the session following a hearty lunch was no barrier to engagement, Ben Gibson, from Micro Scooters UK clearly showed that putting the customer at the centre wasn’t just a marketing slogan and whizzed about the stage to share some proven tactics and projects to celebrate best practices that by sharing customer stories and winning the hearts and minds of colleagues they have embraced their customers to make a positive difference to company performance and customer loyalty.

Bob Stella from KBC Bank Ireland gave us all peek into the future and in this fast-paced presentation, Bob went on a journey that many of us will need to take, in search of the future contact centre agents and asked Who are they? When will they appear? How can we attract them? And How do we prepare for them? And he has some answers focusing on what it means to work in the contact centre of the future, his role in preparing our colleagues for it and how KBC’s pioneering collaboration between Planning, MI and Training will help them achieve this.

Susanne Vanner from Ernst & Young LLP also took us on a journey entitled, Seven Steps to Operations Heaven in the Contact Centre. With contact centres coming under ever increasing pressure to reduce costs, increase effectiveness and drive customer satisfaction. Susanne eloquently and effectively showed us how to drive transformation and maintain delivery, when everything around you is also changing.

This was followed by another master class in breaking down barriers and creating opportunities to the delivery of customer experience from Patricia Sanchez-Diaz, from Centrica. She posed the question, how do colleagues become able, empowered, and informed so that they deliver the intended customer experience? And answered it perfectly by noting that by allowing agents to be themselves, provide the empathy and listening skills plus the problem solving and creativity around additional

SPRING 2020

services, they are truly empowered and informed to handle even the most challenging situations and eliminate negativity and reduce customer complaints.

How do you ensure that you provide a great customer experience to end customers when you rarely, if ever, communicate with one. This was the challenge posed by Ian Naylor, from Booking.com. As Ian noted, most if not all services are delivered by their supply partners such as hotels, car hire companies and other travel specialist, who effectively have Booking.com’s reputation in their hands. In Collaborating with our Supply Partners to improve CX he took us on a trip with various partners to show how by working closely to identify potential problem areas, such as unexpected and unwanted extra charges from car hire firms, and the effect on customers, they were able to change the perception and the end results for all stakeholders.

Adam Corfield from Bupa Global looked at the journey the BUPA operational excellence team has been through to win over hearts & minds within the organisation and drive wider cultural adoption outside the team, encouraging the business to own its part in putting our customers and their customers’ voice at the centre of its decision making. The story was particularly compelling as it showed how to culture shift a global organisation of 183 countries.

Then the highlight of the day with a presentation from Richard Rowley & Nicola Whitbread from Census Life. Richard explained how Census Life decided to take a very unique and unusual approach, as their entire business ethos is to support those with criminal records back into society through meaningful employment and to educate and influence other businesses, decision-makers and policymakers. He then handed over to Nicola who reduced everyone to tears with her poignant, honest and heart-warming story of how she was given a second chance at life after having over 150 convictions and numerous prison sentences. She is now a contact centre supervisor in one of Census Life centres and is truly giving something back every day.

Not your typical contact centre story. Not your typical conference. Don’t miss it next year!

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CONTACT CENTRE CASE STUDY

Taking the digital approach BEAUTY BAY explains why it takes an almost entirely digital customer contact approach to cater to its younger demographic, increase efficiency, and lower company costs

T Gavin Scott, Head of Customer Service, BEAUTY BAY

“

We could take roughly 20 contacts an hour via the digital channels, versus around eight to 10 via telephone.

”

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he beauty industry is an incredibly successful, and progressively digital, area of business, increased even more so in recent years with the rise of YouTube and Instagram beauty influencers. At the forefront of the digital beauty space, BEAUTY BAY is a leading online beauty retailer with over 7,000 products on its website and new launches every week. Originally founded in 1999 as a fragrance retailer, the company was re-launched in 2005 with a new name and focus.

Gavin Scott, Head of Customer Service at BEAUTY BAY, introduces the company further. “Our vision is to be the number one global destination for the young beauty obsessed,” he says. “BEAUTY BAY sells a wide range of beauty products that you won’t necessarily be able to find in the High Street. We import a lot of American products; we have our own range of makeup palettes and we’ve just introduced our own skincare range; we have all kinds of accessories, from makeup brushes to beauty blenders, and we’ve moved more recently into a more holistic view of beauty, looking at the wellness category.”

Scott says that when he joined the company in 2016, the contact channels BEAUTY BAY offered were telephone, e-mail, and the social media platforms Twitter and Facebook. He says he realised quickly that as the company’s demographic are predominantly under 30, with the largest group being 16-24, the majority of this age range preferred handling their queries digitally rather than over the phone. This, coupled with Scott’s research on how many customer queries could be handled per hour via phone versus digital channels, led to the company ultimately turning their phones off to customers in 2016.

He explains: “We could take roughly 20 contacts an

hour via the digital channels, versus around eight to 10 via telephone.” A significant difference. “I did a little research as to what I thought our customers would want and weighed that up that against industry feedback on how not having a telephone number on your website can affect sales. We raised this with our leadership team, and said that we thought switching our telephones off would be a great idea to trial, because we genuinely believed that our customers wanted to contact us more and more via digital channels.”

This trial turned out to be a success, with BEAUTY BAY being able to focus their efforts on the channels that handle a higher number of customer queries an hour, and receiving minimal complaints about the lack of a phone number to call. “The only people who really wanted to use telephone communication were people whose journeys had failed via the digital methods,” he says. “So, then my focus was to really find out where their journey had failed and fix that point, rather than opening up a new channel for them.”

Today, BEAUTY BAY’s main contact methods are email, a contact form on its website, and its social media pages on Facebook and Twitter through both its main page, @beautybay, and help-specific account, @beautybayhelp. Scott highlights that a big advantage of this approach is that it helps more customers in a shorter space of time, and this increased efficiency has enabled the BEAUTY BAY team to grow at a more gradual rate than the company’s sales growth.

“It allows us to focus on the preferred channels that our customers want to contact us on, so this is very handy for them. It also builds a community around our channels, which is really important with getting people to engage with our brand.” He also mentions that in

SPRING 2020

CONTACT CENTRE

November 2019, BEAUTY BAY introduced a chatbot to open up the option of self-service for its customers.

“We wanted to give our customers the ability to solve relatively easy questions themselves, rather than having to contact one of our CSAs. The overarching strategy of this is to not reduce our headcount, but allow our CSAs to really focus on the customer experience and delve into each query.”

He does acknowledge, however, that this approach does allow the possibility of losing a more personal connection with a consumer base. “I do see quite often that how someone will talk to you on a social channel will be completely different to how they speak to you on email. Even when we do occasionally call out to customers, the tone that the customer can use over voice compared to social can be dramatically different.”

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He also notes that, being an international company, this approach of keeping a small team in one location can also add to the overall resolution time for individuals in different time zones, which was another consequence taken into consideration when deciding to take this approach.

Nevertheless, the benefits of this digital, and increasingly self-service, approach have proven to far outweigh any negatives, and has achieved what it was intended to solve. “A big part of this strategy was to improve customer service in terms of quick wins, such as changing a delivery address or a processing a return. These are the kind of areas where AI will make a difference to the customer,” he says. “This also enables my team to spend more time with customers whose queries require a little more investigation, so that the

customer feels the problem is resolved to their satisfaction and that they are getting that one-toone personal service from BEAUTY BAY that sometimes can go missing when you work in a digital area.”

Moving forward, Scott says that BEAUTY BAY will continue looking into different options of customer channels relevant to their younger demographic. Whatsapp is one platform currently being looked into, and TikTok, and Weibo for BEAUTY BAY’s audience in China, are also being considered.

He emphasises how important being selective is when looking into these options. “It is really important that we look at those emerging channels and choose which will work best for us and our consumers. It’s crucial to remember that just because you can open a channel doesn’t necessarily mean you should,” he says. “It’s better to not offer a channel than to offer it poorly and not deliver the excellent standard of customer service that is key.”

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CONTACT CENTRE SURVEY RESULTS

How useful to your company was the information presented at the event?

95% Extremely/ Very useful

Would you attend the conference again next year?

100% Yes

5% Moderately useful

Please describe your event experience in one sentence:

This was a useful and the most informative event I’ve attended on current and future trends in CX.

Bite-size impactful presentations to really challenge how we should operate moving forward.

A fantastic opportunity for self-development.

For a new manager of contact centre, it’s an excellent way to network and learn new things from different organisations.

Great insights and outstanding networking opportunities.

The best contact centre event I’ve ever attended – I can’t wait to return!

Invigorating!

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CONTACT CENTRE

Which speakers were your favourite?

Dr Nicola Millard

Nick McFarlane

Mary Cope

Ben Lappin

Neil Titcomb

BT

Sky

The Share Centre

The Guardian

Odigo

Patricia Sanchez-Diaz

Adrian Morley

Chris Thewlis

Luke Squires

Gavin Scott

Co-op

npower

Virgin Holidays

BEAUTY BAY

Centrica

How would you rate the organisation of the day?

100%

How did the event compare with what you expected?

85% 15% Better than expected

Met my expectations

Excellent/Good

SPRING 2020

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CONTACT CENTRE FOCUS ON

How diverse collaboration can help prepare for the contact centre of the future KBC Bank Ireland explains how its contact centre leaders are looking to collaboration and diversity to navigate the complex relationship between the high expectations it foresees for contact centre employees of the future, and the reality of them often being the most inexperienced staff

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BC Bank Ireland, part of KBC Group, was set up 40 years ago to disrupt the banking industry with its innovative approach to customer service, and now leads the way in using digital tools for its banking. KBC Bank Ireland’s services are primarily digital-based, although it does have several hubs scattered across the country to also provide the option of the in-person service experience.

Bob Stella, Operational Effectiveness Manager at KBC Bank Ireland, begins by introducing an issue many companies with contact centres face, which KBC has been working to overcome. “Expectations are huge for our agents. We expect them to be skilled on every product; we expect them to know every process and be able to interact with customers through any channel. Yet, they are often the lowest paid, least experienced people in our companies,” he says. “If you want to maintain it being an entry-level job, which is likely, you can’t also expect people to be skilled at everything.”

He continues: “Companies try to keep training to a minimum, and you can’t have everything. You can’t have the shortest training and then produce people who are suddenly going from no experience to experienced and able to do everything really efficiently, in not only the technical skills but also the emotional intelligence we expect call centre agents to demonstrate. The customer-centricity; the awareness of vulnerable customers; the ability to identify someone who potentially has difficulties in understanding what you are explaining. This is an incredibly complex imbalance of expectations and there’s a bit of a conflict between where we’re pushing people towards and the reality they face.”

Stella also acknowledges that, in the digital age, skillsets required for this area of work are changing at a rapid pace. “We’re not really sure what skills will be needed in five years’ time. All companies are constantly trying to adapt and innovate. KBC is a brilliant case for that; we are, by nature, an innovative digital company. We’re always looking for new ways of doing things, but I do know that we’ll have to learn them quickly and adapt to them.” He expands: “Learning how to learn isn’t automatic, and we’re not born with the ability to turn that knowledge into a skill. You need to be able to apply the knowledge you learn or it becomes useless, and you need time to be able to do that.”

The vision for KBC Bank Ireland’s Contact Centre is to establish methods of learning that allow people to practice what they’ve been taught in a collaborative setting, and taking a forward-thinking approach in allowing for specialisation. “The workload is incredibly complex if you expect a single person to do everything. We’re predicting there will continue to be a need for specialisation within contact centres, but it might be along different lines than we see today.”

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Stella also notes that the typical age demographic for these workers will need to be considered and accommodated for. “In the next five to 10 years, we’ve got to acknowledge that we will have to cater for the junior people taking this training, and the environment they work in needs to stay simple enough that we can put new, relatively unskilled people in these roles quickly.”

He explains that the expectations of customers are ever rising, and so to train staff to accommodate this, collaboration will be increasingly important.

“Customers expect to have an omnichannel experience where they talk to one person and feel like they’re taken care of completely for all their needs. If you are one agent trying to provide a seamless experience for the customer, you must be able to collaborate at an epic level with your colleagues that are specialised in the things that you are not. You must be able to learn from your colleagues constantly, and share your knowledge with your customers, so they are supporting you whilst you’re supporting them. This ability to collaborate isn’t innate in the way we work today, and we must build it up if we are to succeed in the future.”

The benefits of professional collaboration are numerous, both for the contact centre agents working directly with customers, and in improving the agents’ training and development internally.

These benefits are heightened further, Stella says, through diversity: “I find that collaborating with people that think like you and have the same experiences as you is potentially very easy, but not particularly useful. When you try to build something with someone who shares your viewpoint, you’re not going to create anything particularly different than if you were working by yourself.”

“What’s more exciting for me is when I see people with different viewpoints and objectives working together and building new models to the advantage of both sides. Some of the results have been brilliant.” He gives the example of when KBC Bank Ireland’s data analytics team and the training and coaching parts of the contact centre were brought together to enable the value and effectiveness of

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CONTACT CENTRE

“

What’s more exciting for me is when I see people with different viewpoints and objectives working together and building new models to the advantage of both sides. Some of the results have been brilliant.

”

Bob Stella, Operational Effectiveness Manager, KBC Bank Ireland training to be measured. “This collaboration matched skills that are normally set in very different parts of an organisation. Data analysts are very data-driven and analytical, whilst trainers and coaches tend to be more people-focused. When they started working together, they saw advantages they hadn’t thought of before.”

He continues: “The trainers had often struggled to measure return investment on the training they provided, but all of a sudden collaborating with the data analytics team gave them an opportunity to measure change in people’s results after they’ve attended a particular training session or coached on a particular aspect of their work.” Stella notes that this also gave them more concrete evidence in the value they add to the business. “Before we started this collaboration and brought diverse people to work together, we just wouldn’t have thought of a lot of the end products we’ve gained. It’s

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teaching the value of proactively seeking and valuing diversity and collaborating with people different than you.”

Stella shares the four steps KBC Bank Ireland took to make collaboration with diversity a reality within the business. These were: 1. Deciding a purpose. “You can’t just pull a bunch of teams that have never worked together and expect amazing results,” he says. “We decided what our core purpose was as a department, and how it aligned to the purpose of the contact centre within the company. We concluded that we are there to ‘foster an efficient environment where engaged colleagues deliver a superior service’. We laid out six key operating principles; concepts like making our solutions scalable, working collaboratively with others, encouraging self-service, and other core operating principles at work. This means that all work that comes in should be processed in a way that adheres to our operating principles and adds value to our purpose.”

2. Learning new subjects together. “As a team, we learnt new concepts, such as growth mindset vs a fixed mindset or behavioural economics. We looked at what it means and how it applies to our environment and our work.”

3. Understanding objectives and aligning to them. “We worked with the Head of the Contact Centre to really understand her objectives. We then took time to re-align our own objectives to ensure we were adding value to the contact centre and the entire organisation. We slowly built up knowledge of, and respect for, each other, and understood how everyone in the team contributed to the same objectives. After all that was done, we started talking about what projects we were going to do. We began with six key strategic projects that are critical to the team this year, and we will work through them gradually throughout 2020.”

4. Identifying the collaborative projects and making time for putting them together. “This is critical to our ongoing success. We’ve blocked out time every week specifically to work on these projects. Unless you deliberately make time to work on innovation and developing projects, it’s not going to happen.”

Stella says that the end result of these efforts has been leveraging the diversity built in his team. He hopes to continue imbedding this culture moving forward, and gradually roll this out in how they train people and communicates data, results, and productivity. “Everything starts to gradually change into an environment that encourages collaboration and makes it easier for people to work with others outside of their immediate team. We need to develop tools that help people find other skills different than their own.”

He finishes by saying that his ultimate goal is to see more contact centre agents promoted through the ranks and progressing with their careers within KBC as a result of the thorough training and collaborative culture his team are working to create. “I want people to look back and think the turning point of their career was when they worked in the contact centre. That’s what we strive for.”

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CONTACT CENTRE FEATURE

The value of perfecting the fundamentals of customer service The Guardian explains how it halved churn by perfecting the fundamental basics of its customer service and worked to make it a priority of the company

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ust shy of 200 years old, The Guardian is one of the world’s leading news organisations today. It was founded in 1821 in Manchester as a local daily paper. It is a now a global news organisation with a daily paper in the UK, established reporting and commercial bases in the US and Australia, as well as apps and a website with huge reach – 2.17 billion page views in March 2020. Funded and owned by The Scott Trust as opposed to a single individual like many of its competitors, it is able to guarantee a genuinely independent form of journalism that safeguards its progressive values and trustworthiness to its readers and supporters.

Ben Lappin, Director of Retention and Customer Experience at The Guardian, further introduces the organisation: “Business-wise we have about one million supporters across a wide variety of products, including print and digital contributions, and we’re aiming to get to two million in the next three years. We’re probably best known for exposing the Windrush scandal and the Panama Papers, so we’re in quite a central place in the news discourse.”

Lappin explains how churn, the rate at which customers stop doing business with a company, was targeted at The Guardian. “When I started here, churn was really difficult to measure. We were aware it was a problem, but we didn’t have solid measurements at a customer level that enabled us to do much about it.” He notes that when you can’t measure churn, it is hard to manage. “My first priority from a CX perspective was putting in a measurement programme to understand why customers were churning and why they were contacting us.”

This measurement programme fell into three categories: • Payment failure. “This is typically half of all churn and often overlooked.

That includes things like credit cards expiring and insufficient funds.”

• Breakage. “This is when something is broken or not good enough in a product, journey or experience. You have to fix the problem at the root to stop other customers experiencing them in the future and preventing your existing customers having the problem repeated. Responding brilliantly to failure cannot be a customer service or retention strategy.”

• Engagement. “For our industry this is a buzzword that’s kind of used and abused, but for us it was very much about educational basics, such as helping customers understand the products they bought, what kind of

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benefits they had, and even correcting misconceptions.”

As a result, The Guardian found that it didn’t need to give their supporters more, it just needed to deliver what was promised, and Lappin’s team began to work on this.

“Our effort to reduce churn started in the contact centre, where our customers were telling us what their problems were and why they wanted to leave us. Then, we set about challenging the rest of the business to try and do better.”

“From our perspective, it’s about fixing the fundamentals and making sure there are brilliant basics. We looked at what our customers were saying, understood the problems that we were giving them, went about fixing those problems, and then made sure that we were onboarding people properly so they understood exactly what it was they had bought. We did that through listening, measurements, e-mails, and phone calls. There’s nothing too slick and shiny in there, but it has been incredibly impactful. It’s important to ask yourself if you have done the basics well enough before you try to start introducing AI and clever machine learning. Surprisingly, a lot of businesses still struggle with this.”

Lappin emphasises why this is such an important focus for businesses to have, and how to utilise customer feedback effectively.

“No one wakes up wanting to contact your business, but people do every day. You have to treat every bit of service demand as if it were failure demand and use that to put

SPRING 2020

CONTACT CENTRE FEATURE

“

We looked at what our customers were saying, understood the problems that we were giving them, went about fixing those problems, and then made sure that we were onboarding people properly so they understood exactly what it was they had bought.

”

Ben Lappin, Director of Retention and Customer Experience, The Guardian

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pressure on the business to make the improvements that need to be made in the areas causing issues. For example, a lot of our issues were in home delivery, so we worked with the people who managed the home deliveries internally to put pressure on the supplier to improve, make changes to the service, and get better with feedback.”

He links this to another key point: making the problem human. “Some great advice I’ve been given is to never get so focused on the numbers that you stop listening to what your customers are saying.

That’s a real fundamental in CX; we do a lot of round measurement but it’s really important to cut through that and understand the reality of customer problems and how it makes them feel. You need to listen to be able to respond.”

Lappin also says it is imperative that senior stakeholders and senior leaders in the business have a good understanding of how poor service and problems upstream can cause real frustrations for customers to ensure that it remains a company focus.

“Customer service is often bottom of the list when it comes to allocating extra budget resources, getting investment, and speaking in trade meetings. We need to exploit the moral authority that comes from representing the customer, which means inserting your team and your agenda into the conversation.”

He continues: “Once you’ve got your measurement programme in place and you understand the service demand, and once you’ve made the problem human and people understand the customer frustrations and have heard their voices, you’re then in a good position to try to push the customer-focused change that needs to happen. Ask yourself how the customer and your brand fit together. At The Guardian, our

customers’ experience of our brand is firstly the journalism, but secondly is the customer service they receive.”

Lappin also highlights that this effort has impacted The Guardian’s customer relationships and customer trust in a positive way. “We’ve done a really good job at getting our brilliant basics in, fixing the fundamentals, and annoying our customers as little as possible.”

Moving forward, Lappin says his team are now looking to pivot more towards a customer success model. “We’re putting more of the basics online so customers can administer their subscriptions and contributions themselves. We’re doing more to make sure we can monitor certain things on the customer journey and we’re moving to more digital offerings, such as online vouchers rather than paper vouchers so we can monitor usage, and then using that information to proactively work with customers to make sure we’re offering the best possible service and keeping them engaged.”

“Lots of what we’re doing around engagement we do think will help us be commercially successful, but we’re in it for the long-haul.” He finishes by explaining how The Guardian takes care of its customers on an individual level. “If we see that a customer’s usage falls or they’re only using our app or only picking up their paper certain days of the week, we can get into the customer success model and determine if that customer would benefit from being on a smaller package long-term and proceed responsibly. This will help us have really good relationships with our customers,” he says. “We play a big role in lots of our customers’ daily lives and there’s an amazing brand affinity, and we take that very seriously.”

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2

Tickets £995

2020

Monday 7 December 2020 Riverbank Park Plaza, London Welcome to the industry’s largest customer engagement event, where you’ll join 800 peers as you witness 70+ speakers from world-class brands presenting a realm of case study content relating to the latest innovations in the CX world, helping you to go back to the office armed with an array of new, exciting strategies to delight your customers.

CustomerEngagementSummit.com #EngageCustomer

Organised by

CONTACT CENTRE INTERVIEW

10 minutes with Bogdan Grigorescu Bogdan Grigorescu, AI Platform Manager at Marks and Spencer and speaker at our 2020 Future of the Contact Centre, gives insight into his case study and role …

Can you introduce Marks and Spencer (M&S)?

M&S is a British institution in its own right. It is a 136 year-old retail business specialised in quality clothing, homeware and food, and headquartered in London with over 1400 stores in 57 countries.

Can you please explain AVA, the enterprise cloud platform mentioned in your talk?

AVA is an enterprise cloud platform powered by Machine Learning that understands the reason for contact and uses it to manage the customer contacts into M&S retail stores and the contact centre while offering a conversational experience to callers – it is not an IVR. AVA handles over 10 million calls a year and self-serves 30% of the call volumes. It has omni-channel capabilities and can handle any media type: voice calls, chats, emails, e-docs and social media feeds.

AVA is constructed as a modular, API-based platform and managed through a DevOps-centric Operational Model using acceptance test-driven development (ATDD) with a production-first approach. It uses a seamless failover mechanism where the primary and backup are mirrored on two different clouds. This ensures no loss of data and no impact on customer experiences in situations where incidents arise.

This, coupled with the team's WoW and processes, makes AVA extremely reliable and cost effective. The platform achieved 100% uptime over 12 months and cut business costs by £700K a year.

In your talk you mentioned that there are no silos involved with this part of M&S – can you tell us about this please?

The platform team is a cross-functional team of tech leads that are under the leadership of the platform manager. The team’s culture is centred on collaboration and uses agile ways of working. This eliminates silos and strengthens cohesion across functional areas of the platform: DevOps, QA, operations and design.

Can you talk us through the processes that you discussed in your talk?

There are several processes used for running the AVA platform.

• Agile framework and acceptance test-driven development where testing shifts left. Relevant tests are run at each stage of SDLC and this minimise the number of defects as development progresses through its lifecycle. This means there is no need for big QA teams; it also maintains high velocity of deployments and high level of trust in the product quality. Everybody can test any customer journey with ease straight in production and with no impact to live functions – at any time and from anywhere as long as they have a working phone line. Everyone is encouraged to check things out if they have any doubts that something may not be right. The feedback loop is also simple: a single PoC to report possible problems and relevant test results through several channels – phone, text, chat, e-mail. This ensures the platform

SPRING 2020

•

•

•

•

team is aware of any possible issues before anyone else and can take appropriate action fast.

Production-first and quality-first approach. This mindset was instilled so to have zero defects to production through changes. Everyone is encouraged to try breaking functionalities during change validations.

Continuous delivery model. As in any AI environment, changes are fast and frequent. The Delivery Model is centred on Agile DevOps where extensive automation is used for QA, integration and deployment of builds in a “conveyor belt” fashion: changes are deployed in production at any time of day any day of the year in minutes not hours and with no impact to live.

GDPR compliance. All changes must fully adhere to data protection regulations. As such, GDPR compliance is part of every stage of SDLC. Also change validations contain specific tests for data retention, data access and data management as applicable.

Consumption cost model. As AVA is a cloud platform, its costs are all OPEX, i.e. it’s a consumption cost model. Managing platform costs is essentially managing platform consumption of cloud resources and functions. As such consumption is monitored closely to ensure the platform doesn’t over – or under consumes. As part of the Operational Model, there is monitoring ad alerting setup as well actions to take accordingly.

You said in your talk, ‘Behind every successful solution is a reliable platform – a platform and an ecosystem that just work’, can you tell us more about this?

Solutions are as good as their backbone. All modern solutions are running on a platform. The platform is the enabler not just for the efficient running of applications but also for accessing the data, for integrating with other functions of the business and with third parties’ products. The platform is also the place where access to data and to relevant business applications is managed securely and in accordance to GDPR and applicable data protection regulations.

A platform achieves high reliability not only through its design and technologies but also because of the people and processes involved.

Reliable platforms are operated by cross-functional tech teams that have a culture of collaboration with a Production-first mindset and using Continuous Improvement through rapid experimentation and frequent iteration and highly automated processes such as CI/CD, monitoring and alerting etc.

What we might we see next from M&S in this area?

Order number capture has recently gone live. For order-related enquiries, AVA captures the order number in the conversation with the caller and sends it over with the call to the contact centre. The Advisors receives the order number alongside the intent for calling and the call specific information. This saves Advisor's time as there’s no need to search for the order anymore. In the future there will be experimentation for sentiment capture and analysis.

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CONTACT CENTRE INTERVIEW

10 minutes with Ben Gibson Ben Gibson, Managing Director, Micro Scooters and speaker at our 2020 Future of the Contact Centre, gives insight into his case study and role …

Can you give an introduction to Micro Scooters?

Micro Scooters was founded by Anna Gibson and Philippa Gibson nearly 15 years ago. We retail children and adult’s scooters and accessories via micro-scooters.co.uk and through retail partners including John Lewis, Smyths, Halfords, Harrods and hundreds of independent stores across the UK and Ireland.

Can you provide an insight into a ‘day in the life’ of your role?

We are a small team at Micro UK – just 30 people. The team we have has been with us for over five years. It’s great to have a team who work so well together. My role is to help give the team the time and space they need to continue innovating. To continue to keep pushing ahead with autonomy.

I act as a sounding board for ideas, problems and help guide the team to a resolution. I am hands-off as our team are so great, and am here to ask questions and help solve issues so the team can keep moving forwards.

Can you give an overview of your talk?

In my talk I spoke about the importance of putting the customer at the heart of everything we do. The business was founded 15 years ago by two mums who fell in love with the product because it helped their day-to-day family life. Anna and Philippa were not only the founders but our first customers. This customer-first approach still stands and runs through everything we do at Micro.

For example, we run Live Chat at times to suit our customers’ shopping behaviour. We launched WhatsApp because customers told us they didn’t want to speak on the phone or wait for an e-mail. Our spares and repairs appointment service enables customers to speak to a scooter engineer at a time and date to suit them. Customer facing tools to help customers communicate with us in as frictionless way as possible.

Why do you think communications teams are the future?

I said in my presentation the “contact centre is dead” and I firmly believe that. Communications team are the way future simply because they are the only team in any business that follows the customer throughout their whole purchase journey.

Cleverly staffed communications teams can interact with a customer during the need and awareness phase. For example, at Micro we run Scoot Safe classes in schools and after-school clubs across the UK. Our communications team make contact with the schools and follow up via social media with people who have engaged in the class. At this point a customer is in the need/awareness stage – and our team interact with them.

From the need/awareness stage right through the purchase journey to advocacy the Communications team is there with our customers every step of the way. This is in stark contrast to the model of a customer service team speaking to customers only when a customer contacts them. At Micro we believe our teams are capable of more and our customers deserve more.

What would you say has been Micro Scooters biggest success to date in customer service?

It may not be earth shattering, but Live Chat and WhatsApp have been hugely

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successful. Not only in terms of meeting a customer need but from a commercial point of view both have added real value back into the business.

We launched Whats App in January 2020. It is already our third biggest contact channel behind live chat and calls. We expect it to overtake calls during 2020.

Live Chat accounts for nearly 50% of all contact. It has a huge conversion rate – triple that of a visitor who doesn’t chat with us. Visitors who use live chat also have a higher AOV than those who don’t. You can see why our Live Chat is available from 8am-10pm 7 days a week.

Can you tell us how voice of the customer (VOC) is taken into consideration at Micro Scooters?

VOC is not taken into consideration at Micro. It IS the consideration. It is our everyday consideration from starting meetings with feedback from the Communications team to ending meetings sense checking our ideas and thoughts past the imaginary customers in the room.

Our Live Chatters have a shared Trello board with the ecommerce team so real time feedback can be sent and acted on in real time. We have monthly meetings to act on customer feedback that comes from all channels. Most importantly we ensure that every single person in the business whether they are in finance, product, trade or HR spend a mandatory hour a week talking to our customers on Live Chat. Only when the whole organisation is immersed in customer can customer centric behaviour and ideas flourish.

What do you think is the most important factor affecting contact centres today?

That they are still being called contact centres. The skills of the people in what are still called contact centres are, in my opinion, underutilised and undervalued. The difference between a brand being successful or not relies very much on the experience they receive when interacting with it.

This shouldn’t happen when a customer has a problem. A company’s communications team should be with the customer through every step of the buying cycle. Employees in communications team should be given the autonomy to do what they do best – engaging with customers.

Can you give us any insight into what we can expect next from Micro Scooters in this area?

We will continue to put customers at the heart of all our decision making.

Turning customer feedback into insight that drives a competitive advantage is always our number one priority. This doesn’t just related to customer contact channels but also product innovation, marketing and retail opportunities.

We will continue to up skill our communications team in order to provide the very best brand experience. In 2020 we will be launching a virtual showroom/appointment service. This allows customers to book a 1:1 appointment utilising AR. Customers will be able to virtually touch and feel a product before they purchase.

What did you enjoy most about the event?

It was great to hear brands of all sizes speak. I’m thrilled that the event embraces the importance of customers. The networking opportunities were an excellent way to meet and discuss ideas with our peers. I would thoroughly recommend the event to all businesses.

SPRING 2020

INTERNATIONAL ENGAGE AWARDS 2020 MONDAY 9 NOVEMBER Welcome to the International Engage Awards Following on from the success of the 2019 Engage Awards, which saw Financial Services and Retail sectors as the big winners, we’re delighted that the 2020 Engage Awards are open for entries. This year sees 24 categories spanning every aspect of engagement, giving you more choice of categories than ever before.

As the only customer and employee engagement awards programme, if you’ve achieved great things with your engagement initiatives, then the Engage Awards are perfect for you. We’re open for entries until Monday 13th July, so don’t miss out on recognising your efforts.

We wish you the best of luck with your entries.

EngageAwards.co.uk

EBM Live Events INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS CONFERENCE

CX MARKETING SUMMIT 2020

18 SEPTEMBER 2020 I VICTORIA PARK PLAZA, LONDON

2 OCT 2020 I VICTORIA PARK PLAZA, LONDON

This Conference will take an in-depth look at the fast changing world of internal communications and how it is increasingly taking on the critical employee engagement role that has too often been neglected by those in HR.

Every interaction that a customer has with a company, be it online or offline, changes their impression of the brand. For this reason, there has never been a more important time for the marketing function to ensure a great CX through each touchpoint of creating awareness, driving conversions, and keeping existing customers happy.

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT SUMMIT 2020

ENGAGE AWARDS 2020

9 NOV 2020 I WESTMINSTER PARK PLAZA, LONDON

9 NOV 2020 I WESTMINSTER PARK PLAZA, LONDON

Progressing into its seventh year, the Employee Engagement Summit is firmly established as Europe’s premier event, examining all aspects of work under the overarching theme of how technology is changing the face of employee engagement.

Following on from the success of the 2019 Engage Awards programme, which broke records across the board, we are delighted to announce the renaming of our programme for 2020 to the International Engage Awards.

CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT SUMMIT 2020

FUTURE OF THE CONTACT CENTRE

7 DEC 2020 I RIVERBANK PARK PLAZA, LONDON

12 FEB 2021 I VICTORIA PARK PLAZA, LONDON

Our flagship Customer Engagement Summit is back. Delegates will hear from 45+ speakers, and we’ll be covering the latest, hottest topics in the industry.

Contact centres remain well placed to become the beating heart of an organisation’s customer engagement strategy. It is the contact centre that can deliver the customer insight that is needed in a business environment where our customers are in control of how they choose to interact with organisations and where the so called ‘customer journey’ is ever more complex.

DIGITAL WORKPLACE CONFERENCE

EMPLOYEE WELLBEING CONFERENCE

11 MARCH 2021 I VICTORIA PARK PLAZA, LONDON

11 MARCH 2021 I VICTORIA PARK PLAZA, LONDON

Engaged employees are more important to organisations than ever before.

Providing our people with a truly digital workplace environment enables new and more effective and efficient ways of working while improving engagement levels and at the same time relationships with our customers.

The challenges and opportunities relating to the mental, financial and physical health related wellbeing of our people are now firmly at the top of the business agenda, alongside increasing awareness and understanding of the myriad of issues involved.

For more information please contact us at: tickets@ebm.media or 01932 506 300

EngageCustomer.com