Contact Management Magazine Issue 1 2018

THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MAGAZINE ISSUE 1 • 2018

The Innovation Issue ❯❯The digital revolution

❯❯Evolution of callback technology

❯❯Sunny forecast for cloud-based contact centers

❯❯Omni-channel biometrics to counter innovating crooks

❯❯Creditors: embrace the digital age

❯❯Improving contact centres with speech analytics

The Innovation Issue

The digital revolution in customer care. Are you ready?

By Seema Rao

C

ustomer care is undergoing a digital revolution. Customers are demanding more ways to engage with organizations. They are demanding faster, more accurate service and they want seamless, connected journeys.

79%1 of consumers say they are more loyal to organizations that are easy and simple to contact, yet two out of three say it is typically “exhausting” dealing with customer service. What an opportunity for improvement!

Consider adopting these key innovations in customer care and best practices to ensure that you are delivering a seamless customer experience and driving customer loyalty: Digital Transformation, Rise of the Bots and Cloud.

idea who you were or why you were calling? Is it any wonder consumers are frustrated?

While digital transformation does include incorporating newer digital channels such as mobile apps, chat, SMS and social media into the contact centre, it is much more than that.

Simply implementing digital is not delivering on digital transformation.

The customer journey needs to be continuous. As customers engage with your organization across different channels and escalate from self-service to assisted service, agents need to be empowered with contextual information about the customers’ journeys to date. Front office and backoffice operations should be connected with your digital channel strategies for continuous care throughout the customer journeys, resulting in lower customer effort and increased loyalty.

A Gartner report2, suggests that 89% of business leaders consider the customer experience (CX) to be the “new battlefield” for competition. Delivering continuous, contextual and capable customer journeys is critical in providing a differentiated and relevant level of customer service, and CX, and winning the competitive war.

Agents need to be empowered with contextual information about the customers’ journeys to date.

Digital transformation Today’s digitally savvy customers prefer to self-serve online. They want to be taken care of at any time, from any location and on any device. When they do need to reach into the contact centre, the experience needs to be effortless and without friction.

But too often, customers experience fragmented customer journeys. When was the last time that you were forced to call into a contact centre because you had difficulty in filling out a web form and the agent had no 2 | Contact management

Rise of the bots Aligned with digital transformation and responding to customers’ demand for 24/7 support and quick, accurate answers to queries is the promise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) using bots and digital assistants. Bots use Natural Language Processing engines (NLP) that recognize human speech and understand the caller’s intent without requiring the caller to speak or chat in specific phrases.

Customers can perform simple tasks such as request a mortgage calculator, schedule an appointment and answer frequently asked questions without speaking to an agent. Bots and digital assistants are also very effective at collecting initial customer information before escalating to an agent, creating a personalized CX. The interaction can be routed to the best agent based on information collected by the bot.

Here are several best practices to consider when implementing bots: • Ensure that there is a seamless escalation to live agents or experts when required. If the bot cannot answer a complicated query or it uses sentiment analysis to detect that the customer is angry, or frustrated, seamlessly transfer the interaction to an agent to take over and finish assisting the customer; • Connect to the live agent in the same dialogue window instead of Issue 1 • 2018

The Innovation Issue redirecting and increasing hold times. To accomplish this companies should look for contact centre providers that offer easy-to-use application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow for simple ways to interact with the contact centre software; • Always identify that it is a bot that the customer is interacting with. Likewise when the interaction escalates to a live agent: identify that they are now engaging with an individual; and • Collect end-to-end customer specific data throughout the customer journey. Customer data will enable capabilities such as intelligent routing, agent insight, reporting, analytics and pre-population of forms and deliver an effortless CX.

Moving to the cloud Cloud solutions allow contact centres to gain access to the latest in technology across multiple channels (omnichannel), reporting, analytics and workforce optimization suites. They offer technology innovation as well as the ability to scale agents business needs change with little to no capital outlay.

Just some of the benefits of going to the cloud include: • Cost savings with little upfront investment, and subscription based, pay-as-you-go utility models.

Support costs and upgrade costs are eliminated as they are borne by the cloud providers; • Cloud contact centres require less deployment time so are easier to scale and administer. They can be up and running in weeks rather than months; • With access to the latest upgrades and contact centre

capabilities, innovation is continuous. Organizations can focus on changing business conditions and delivering a highly personalized and differentiated CX; • IT staff are now free to focus on being responsive to contact centre business requirements, instead of managing and deploying core infrastructure; • Security requirements are outsourced to the cloud providers that are typically is better staffed to deal with customer sensitive data; and • Cloud providers offer service level guarantees and provide disaster recovery capabilities that ensure continuous operations for mission critical contact centres. The best providers offer a highly available, geo-redundant and survivable service.

Organizations need to find a cloud partner that best matches their requirements for price, functionality and support. The vendor must offer enterprise-class, scalable solutions with guaranteed security and service levels.

Once a cloud contact center has been deployed, businesses need the ability to scale the number of seats up or down, increase channel support options or integrate applications to meet demand. A vendor with a defined roadmap that aligns with the contact centre evolution is important.

By selecting the right cloud vendor, businesses can then focus on CX innovation, digital transformation and extending a differentiated level of customer service. The burden of keeping pace with changing technologies and hardware obsolescence will instead be shifted to the cloud provider.

In conclusion the digital revolution in the contact centre space is here.

Organizations must transform their customer care strategy to meet today’s customer demands: not just to thrive but to survive.

Is your organization ready?

Seema Rao is Collaboration Marketing Manager, Cisco 1 “Chat, tap, talk: Eight key trends to transform your digital customer experience” Cisco/BT, 2017 2 “Gartner Predicts a Customer Experience Battlefield” Gartner, Feb 2015

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Helping payments executives understand the changing pressures on the finance department to recommend new strategies and deliver new services, adopt new technology, ensure payments security and speed, satisfy changing consumer demand and produce more detailed and accurate analytics more quickly. This includes all areas of payments processing and technology.

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As well as…

• Milos Vranesevic, SVP, NAM Marketing, Mastercard • Dan Kelly, President CFIB • Duane Tough, President, Payability • Sue Whitney, Payments Canada Presented by: • Robert Vokes, Managing Director, Financial Jeremy Bornstein, Services, Accenture SVP & Marketlead, • Don Bush, Chief Marketing Officer, Kount Advisors,

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Don’t miss out… for more information and to register online go to www.paymentsbusiness.ca Issue 1 • 2018

Contact management | 3

The Innovation Issue

Sunny forecast for cloud-based contact centres Scalability, omni-channel support and personalization drive adoption

By Olivier Jouve

O

n-premises contact centre solutions have long been a staple of customer engagement platforms. However, as companies look for innovative ways to transform operations, many see migration to the cloud as the approach of the future.

Contact centres struggle with legacy on-premises technology that was not designed for the age of web sites, mobile phone applications and social media. It can be nearly impossible to get a single, coherent picture of customers or their journeys also due to fragmented databases and functionality resulting from multiple acquisitions and past installations of point applications.

The cloud is already gaining ground in the core contact centre market. Genesys estimates the adoption rate will double by 2020, reaching as much as 35% of the installed base, up from approximately 15% in 2016.

Infrastructure conditions, regulatory limitations and overall legacy system maturity result in different rates of cloud adoption across regions. The largest contact centre market, North America, led cloud adoption in 2017 with 3.7 million seats1. It is continuing to move downward into midmarket and smaller businesses. Similarly, the Genesys cloud customer engagement solution, PureCloud, is showing upward momentum in Canada with more than 70% growth in its install base in the last six months, according to Genesys’ internal data.

Multiple factors influence the pace of contact centre cloud adoption, including the business context, workload characteristics and IT environment. The shift to cloud shouldn’t be surprising. As customers demand new forms of engagement across multiple digital channels, robust cloud platforms that simplify operations and help achieve faster time to value become a must-have.

Cloud platforms offer a wide range of benefits that let companies modernize contact centre operations quickly and inexpensively without requiring new hardware. One of these unique advantages is the flexibility to dramatically scale upwards or downwards, allowing organizations to become agile while having the tools to ramp up to meet seasonal, hourly or regional needs. Other cloud benefits include state-of-the-art security, automatic software updates and pay-as-you-go models, which curb operating expenses and eliminate the need for large up-front capital outlays.

4 | Contact management

To cloud, or not to cloud By re-fashioning legacy contact centre systems, customer experience managers can benefit from the cloud in several different ways.

Since the cloud offers the ability to store vast sums of customer data, agents can deliver more personalized customer experiences by drawing on information about consumer behaviour. Personalization saves time, increases loyalty and contributes to more seamless customer journeys.

The shift to the cloud also coincides with the adoption of omni-channel customer experience solutions. Through transitioning to the cloud, even small organizations can provide reliable service no matter what channel the customer uses whether by phone, email, chat or text.

Additionally, the development of advanced analytics and machine learning has allowed organizations to better identify customer trends and save time during customer interactions. By analyzing data from buying behavior, for example, artificial intelligence (AI) can transform information into insights and then act to create personalized interactions between companies and individuals.

As analytics are applied to data in the cloud, organizations will improve their ability to predict consumer behavior and empower customers to serve themselves without the constant aid of live agents.

Choosing the cloud-first platform Switching contact centre systems is time-consuming, expensive and disruptive though. Because many

organizations consider customer service to be a cost centre rather than a revenue source, they hobble along as best they can. However, failing to invest in modern contact centre technology is a big risk considering customer experience has become essential to business success.

When selecting a customer engagement platform, there are three critical points to consider: • First, it is crucial to find a cloudfirst platform that is scalable and uses open APIs and web services; • Choose an integrated platform to cut down on implementation costs and get rid of capability silos; and • Select a reputable provider with a strong record of migrations to help support the transition to the cloud.

Cloud computing offers limitless scale, broad functionality and the ability to deliver customer support in all channels. Organizations looking to the future need to take advantage of cloud-centric, omni-channel contact centres to drive loyalty, referrals and new revenue.

Olivier Jouve is the executive vice president of PureCloud for Genesys, the global leader in omni-channel customer experience and contact centre solutions.

He is based in Durham, North Carolina, and can be reached at Olivier.jouve@genesys.com or @OlivierJouve. Genesys has its Canadian offices in Montreal, Quebec, Saint John, New Brunswick and Markham, Ontario.

1 Sources: IDC, Worldwide Contact Center Applications Software Forecast, 2017–2021 (Sept. 2017) and Genesys Cloud Strategy Workshop, May 2017

Issue 1 • 2018

The Innovation Issue

Dear creditors, it’s time to embrace the digital age Accurate payment information and respectful customer service is key

By Kevin Deveau

D

elinquent payments are bad news to all parties. For the organization they mean interrupted cash flow and difficult reconciliation processes. For the consumer they mean hits to credit scores and often becoming inundated with notifications and reminders.

Without a doubt it is in the best interest of both parties to identify and prioritize the most effective methods of contact to ensure repayment and that resolution is quickly met.

But communications about debt repayment are uncomfortable. There are many reasons a customer may skip their payment, such as having insufficient funds or simply forgetting. It’s up to the organization to be tactful about their message and how and when it is being delivered. Are traditional paper reminders mailed to recipients too slow, too impersonal and a thing of the past?

Are calls during work hours or dinnertime more irritating?

We at FICO sought to better understand exactly how customers hope to be contacted. We wondered, though, if the banks and financial institutions they deal with on a daily basis are keeping up to the changing consumer demands?

Mobile devices and digital communications have opened new avenues with opportunities for communication. However, organizations walk a fine line when working with these digital innovations. They are faced with the difficult challenge of using technology to maximize efficiencies, while also respecting privacy and not getting “too close for comfort.”

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLeIGWHs9g0&feature=youtu.be

Consumer survey results In 2017 FICO decided to skip the guess work. We commissioned a survey to ask consumers directly about their preferred and experienced methods of contact across the globe.

While in Canada, email has emerged as the most commonly used and preferred method of contact, one in five respondents indicated that they would actually prefer to hear from their banks via text messages. Text messages are direct and discrete and are delivered through mobile devices that are now the norm, making them a good Issue 1 • 2018

option to ensure customers receive the reminders, yet they enable them to respond on their own schedules.

Despite this, only 11% of respondents say that text Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLeIGWHs9g0&feature=youtu.be messages are regularly used to reach them at this responded quite differently to this time, making this the most underquestion, depending on the types served communication channel, both of social platforms they use most here and in the United States. frequently. For example, countries Preferences aside, respondents such as Germany, Mexico, Spain were also asked to consider what and Brazil most commonly use would really motivate them to make WhatsApp, and when asked about a payment. Over one-third (34%) of their comfort levels with receiving Canadians indicated that hearing late payment notifications through from a live person would be the most this channel, they were much more effective tactic. In the United States open to the idea. however, it was more important Chat apps took off only five years to respondents that the banks’ ago and have grown exponentially in messages be friendly and helpful, the numbers of active users globally. but not necessarily live. This is an An example of this in action is the important reminder to organizations growth of WeChat in China, where who operate on both sides of the banks already incentivize the use of border. Often the audiences in the WeChat app. This growth suggests Canada and the United States are that it is only a matter of time before grouped and treated as one entity, but chat apps are used extensively by there are a number of factors such as customers here in Canada. attitudes, demographics and cultural So how can organizations become differences, that make consumers more effective in the ways they are in each of the markets act and react reaching out to their customers, differently. without putting them off?

With the constantly changing decision-making environments, often How far is too far? the answer is not easy to come by.

With over two billion active users, Fortunately, analytics can inform Facebook and Facebook Messenger these decisions. have become the two most popular The future success of the social and chat apps in Canada collections organization and and the U.S. While the majority of their ability to execute in the new customers are using these platforms environment is going to increasingly regularly throughout the day, the idea depend on how they manage, of receiving late notifications through process and analyze their data. Data these channels was not well received analytics software tools, like those by respondents in those countries. offered through FICO’s Customer When asked, 71% of Canadians Communications Services, provide expressed that they would not be comfortable with this kind of contact.

Interestingly, global respondents Continued on page CM 9 Contact management | 5

The Innovation Issue

The evolution and versatility of callback technology Customers and contact centres win with today’s callback applications

By Jaime Bailey

W

aiting on hold is one of the top frustrations that customers experience. There was a time not so long ago where this was unavoidable.

Now, organizations have the ability to implement cuttingedge callback technology that allows customers to seamlessly choose their own journeys while contacting customer service. The benefits can be tremendous to the customer experience, customers’ satisfaction and loyalty to companies.

What is callback technology?

Callback technology is utilized when someone calls into customer service only to find there is going to be a lengthy wait. Instead of staying on hold, the customer can enter their information and they will receive a callback from a contact centre agent as soon as one becomes available.

Callback technology is often “triggered” from certain variables such as the number of people on hold or the estimated wait time exceeding a certain threshold. As technology improves, so do the options and the customer experience when using it.

When hold times are too long, people do the obvious: they hang up. Not only did these customers or potential leads drop off, they left frustrated.

Callback technology benefits Individuals’ time is valuable and waiting on hold to speak with agents is most likely not how they want to spend it.

Showing customers that their time matters is a great way to build brand loyalty.

Here are several other benefits callback technology offers organizations: • Call abandonment decrease. When hold times are too long, people do the obvious: they hang up. Not only did these customers or potential leads drop off, they left frustrated. Callback technology allows callers to get on with whatever they are doing instead of being tied up on the phone; 6 | Contact management

• More productive agents.

Instead of taking down callers’ information and searching through a customer relationship management (CRM) system or database, employees can easily click into the callers’ accounts before making the callbacks, thereby shrinking call times. As a result more calls can be handled by each agent while providing superior customer service; • Improved first call resolution (FCR). There is a strong link between FCR and customer satisfaction. Similar to the point above, callback technology allows employees to prepare for the calls, retrieving any information or answers they may otherwise have to look up. This saves customers time and avoids unneeded frustration; • Smoother, seamless transitions.

Consumers often use multiple channels and devices when they are looking for service. Therefore, it is vital that consumer information is retained and easily accessible across all channels. Nobody likes repeating themselves, so no matter how a customer reaches out, the context they use should be passed from channel to channel. For example, if a customer calls in, then later switches to chat to ask another question, information from the first interaction should be readily available; • Makes each customer feel valued.

Allowing customers to choose their own journey shows them their priorities and preferences are important. Forcing them to wait on hold for an extended period of time does the opposite; and • Allows customers to gain control of their relationship with your brand. With callback technology solutions, customers can choose other means of communication while waiting for the agents’ callbacks. They can later continue their journeys over the phone,

knowing they can start where they left off instead of having to start from the beginning of the process.

The future of callback technology Callback technology is constantly evolving due to advancements in communications. In order for companies to survive, they must have an efficient and consumer-centric customer service process.

In the near future, it will be important for contact centres to offer newer and more personal ways of communication, such as face-toface video chatting and seamless integration to the latest mobile device technology. On the company side, advanced analytics will be a critical piece in discovering who customers really are, where they generated and even predict why they are reaching out.

It no longer matters what industry you are in or who your primary customers are. High-tech digital companies or new start-ups are not the only organizations utilizing the advancements in customer service. Companies need to offer an omni-channel customer experience in order to satisfy all of their customers’ preferences. Failing to do so could lead to a drop in consumer satisfaction, a decrease in customer retention and even harm the company’s reputation. But taking the lead on customer service can place you ahead of your competition. Stay ahead of the curve and value what matters most to your business...your customers.

Jaime Bailey serves as Vice President of Marketing at VHT. With more than 16 years of experience, she stewards a team focused on understanding the customer experience, applying new marketing techniques and maximizing ROI. A devout proponent of the importance of a well-crafted marketing strategy, her efforts have helped companies enrich customer relationships, drive revenue and grow brand equity.

Issue 1 • 2018

The Innovation Issue

The crooks are innovating, so must CX organizations Why biometrics needs to be an omni-channel initiative

By Brendan Read

Y

our contact centre isn’t the only channel that’s susceptible to fraud. Determined crooks continue to ramp up their efforts to penetrate other channels: from mobile apps to the web. Fortunately, biometrics technologies are advancing so that your organization can detect and stop fraudsters upon first contact.

Brett Beranek

Brett Beranek, Director of Security Strategy, Nuance, is addressing why biometrics needs to be an omni-channel initiative in an interview with Contact Management.

CM: 2017 showed that hackers aren’t slowing down their efforts anytime soon. What are you finding when talking with your customers?

BB: The majority of our customers now understand that when it comes to fraudulent attacks, it’s no longer an “if” game. We are now in a “when” game. When crooks try to attack, how are we going to be prepared to ward off and stop their efforts?

Companies that are not operating with that mindset are fooling themselves. Unfortunately they are making themselves and their customers extremely vulnerable to these types of attacks.

CM: How is the customer experience (CX) landscape different now, from what you were seeing say, three to five years ago especially when dealing with security?

BB: The industry has been doing a fine job in making more channels available for CX transactions, which is a very good thing. Consumers are very open to using mobile apps, web sites, virtual assistants and other tools to interact with the companies with whom they do business. At the Issue 1 • 2018

same time, fraudsters are becoming increasingly sophisticated. They often first try the phone channel, and when that doesn’t work, e.g., because they can’t penetrate the voice biometrics, they target these other growing channels, devices and access points.

CM: You mentioned voice biometrics. Where does voice biometrics fit into the equation?

BB: Voice biometrics has been around for some time. We introduced it to our customers more than 15 years ago.

But the market wasn’t conditioned to using automated voice technologies for identification and authentication.

Instead, businesses relied on knowledge-based information such as U.S. Social Security Numbers, alphanumeric passwords and PINs. The problem with those methods is that once someone hacks into a database, it becomes a free-for-all, leading to a massive data breach, resulting in considerable financial and reputational fallout.

Every dollar of fraud costs organizations nearly 2.5 times more than the actual loss itself, according to LexisNexis. That’s a hard number to stomach.

Given all this, we have seen a drastic uptick in consumers using voice biometrics. For instance, in 2016 our customers had a combined 150 million enrolled voiceprints. In 2017, that number doubled to 300 million and biometrics was used to complete more than 5 billion transactions.

We now have tools that can take this security even further by detecting speech patterns associated with fraudulent behaviour with our ConversationPrint solution. We can tell if someone is an actual customer or a fraudster based on how they string their words together in a conversation with a contact centre agent or even while chatting with a live or virtual assistant.

For example, if an imposter gains knowledge-based information from a previous breach and contacts a

credit card company to try and use the information, the system can flag the interaction based on words alone. Even though the fraudster may have all the required information, ConversationPrint can identify in real-time that it is fraudulent, based on word choices and speech or writing patterns. This is through speech-to-text, a core competency of Nuance, which is applied to short speech segments to analyze vocabulary, sentence structure and grammar.

CM: Does voice biometrics work for all channels?

BB: Voice biometrics is highly effective for most channels, such as interactive voice response (IVR), virtual assistants and mobile apps.

But ideally companies will integrate other complementary biometrics technologies to further safeguard themselves and their customers from fraud. For instance, behavioural biometrics is an excellent tool for the Web channel or in tandem with voice biometrics for other CX interactions. This is why it’s vital that companies look at the whole omnichannel experience when developing strategies to combat fraud. They need to ensure that all points of contact are secure, and biometrics technologies are key to achieving this.

CM: Can you give me an example of how behavioural biometrics works?

BB: Behavioural biometrics analyze behaviour patterns. How a person types, uses a mouse, holds their smartphone or even how they pause when accomplishing a task can all determine behind the scenes that a person is who they say they are.

We’ve learned that fraudsters and hackers have different behaviour and interaction with their devices than non-fraudsters, so behavioural biometrics is useful for detecting fraud before it happens. Note that at the Continued on page CM 9

Contact management | 7

The Innovation Issue

How speech analytics can improve your contact centre Advanced solutions bolster marketing and sales, coaching and compliance

By Mike Aoki

S

peech analytics have progressed tremendously since their early days as little more than a way to measure vocal “tone” and single keywords. Now some programs can convert the content from customer interactions – calls, chats, emails, surveys and social media – into a format that can be analyzed. That gives you “the ability to monitor, record and transcribe 100 percent of customer contacts across different channels”, according to speech analytics expert, Steve Wilton, Principal Consultant at Wilton & Associates Inc. (http://www.wiltonassociates.ca).

Wilton notes that speech analytics have progressed from phonetic systems that recognize single keywords to advanced LVCSR (Large Vocabulary Continuous Speech Recognition) programs.

They generate transcripts of conversations and uses context to determine which are the right words and phrases. That provides more accurate results.

Wilton reports the Steve Wilton, Principal Consultant latest developments in at Wilton & Associates Inc. speech analytics include real time analysis to identify actionable insights during the calls rather than after they end. They also include the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to continuously improve data analysis. Those self-learning algorithms will improve at identifying key data trends to generate more accurate results.

DMG Consulting LLC predicts speech analytics demand will grow by 17% in 2018. Here are several examples how advanced speech analytics are helping contact centres and customer-focused organizations:

Customer inquiries Your CEO wants to know how many customer inquiries are caused by a particular product. Can you easily find that information? What if the sales and marketing team asks about responses to their new ad campaign? Can you provide verbatim customer quotes?

There are now speech analytics programs can recognize the context of conversations. They can tell you how many customers sounded excited about a product or talked favourably about a particular ad campaign. That enables you to provide near real time information about your contact centre’s customer interactions.

8 | Contact management

Upsell opportunities You can track upsell opportunities by product type to see if agents favour certain items. Many systems analyze an agent’s vocal tone to determine if they sound confident when talking about sales. It can identify periods of silence caused by an agent hesitating to suggest an upsell or pausing before tackling an objection. It can even flag when a customer has to repeat themselves. Some systems track the most common customer objections to a sale so, you can train and coach your agents to deal more effectively with them. Those are powerful tools for improvement!

Product intelligence Another benefit of speech analytics is the intelligence it provides to your product development, sales, marketing and C-suite teams.

They discover why customers are cancelling, what retention offers are most successful and if agents are showing the necessary empathy and customer service skills to drive higher NPS (Net Promoter Scores.) Better yet, this data is based upon ALL calls versus traditional call monitoring where only a tiny percentage of calls are analyzed and fewer still yield Voice of the Customer (VOC) data.

Coaching and QA Speech analytics helps with coaching.

One of my biggest frustrations as a coach and trainer is finding good customer interactions to review. I usually review a dozen or more calls and emails to find one good coaching example.

How does that affect your team leaders and/or quality assurance (QA) team? How many interactions do they review before finding a good coaching example? How much time does that waste and how much does that cost in lost productivity?

Imagine being able to find the right example just by clicking a few keywords into a program. How much time would that save? How would having the right example boost your

coaching conversation?

The right speech analytics software can sort interactions by various parameters such as interaction type e.g., cancellation, renewal, upsell, agent behaviour (hesitation or stress in the agent’s voice) and customer behaviour (threatening to escalate their issue to social media.) You can identify where your agents need help and quickly retrieve good examples for coaching.

Another benefit is that ALL calls can be analyzed to find overall trends.

That combats the common agent complaint of, “That call was a one-off.

I usually don’t sound like that!”

Wilton points out that with speech analytics a team leader or QA coach can offer real-time support while the call is still occurring. They might be able to instant message the agent with key diagnostic questions or the answer to a customer inquiry. That can result in improved customer service.

Speech analytics software can conduct automated QA scoring.

Wilton notes, “organizations easily can reduce QA staff by 50% using speech analytics for this purpose.

Speech analytics is a better option for agents who now have 100% of their calls scored (not just 1%-5%). This is done in a timely fashion (often in hours rather than weeks), and it is done objectively, by a machine, so there is no opportunity for believing there is a bias.” That can improve coaching consistency and agent performance. This analysis can also highlight training opportunities and process gaps.

Regulatory compliance Speech analytics can reinforce compliance. If you are in a heavily regulated industry, speech analytics can identify when agents veer off the mandated regulatory script. It can identify interactions in which the agent failed to use proper compliance language or omitted key phrases.

That allows you to coach back to those issues. It also provides you with Issue 1 • 2018

The Innovation Issue a mechanism to gauge compliance, e.g., “Our agents follow the compliance script for new sales 99.7% of the time.” A good system can also flag individual calls when that does not occur, giving you the opportunity to address those issues in real-time.

Vendor selection What should you ask, if you are planning to add or enhance speech analytics in your contact centre? Wilton says, “Some speech analytics companies design their solution to be self-sufficient—with vendor support as a fraction of their revenue costs—while others charge significantly more” to get fully up and running.

He adds, “Step-by-step guides that walk (your contact centre) through how to achieve Return-on-Investment (ROI) and having expert one-on-one support” are important for a successful speech analytics implementation.

Wilton gives one final tip, “Ask if a vendor offers the ability to ‘test drive’ or do a ‘proof of concept’ for a fraction of the price compared to purchasing it. This allows a company to see what it can do while being supported by a team of contact centre and speech analytics experts.”

Mike Aoki is the President of Reflective Keynotes Inc. (www.reflectivekeynotes.com), a Canadian training company that helps contact centres improve their sales and customer experience results. A contact centre expert, Mike serves on the Advisory Council of GTACC (the Greater Toronto Area Contact Centre Association www.gtacc.ca )

Dear creditors, it’s time to embrace the digital age Continued from page CM 5

a wealth of valuable information on debtor profiles. They enable collection teams to work smarter by identifying and prioritizing those with the strongest likelihood of payment returns. They also facilitate broad access to data, including real-time updates. This leads to informed collection decisions to connect with customers over the right channels, whether via text messages, phone calls, letter

are retained. The system recognizes positive contact from a customer and prevents further contact in the following days. Better yet, a customer who makes a payment via a web portal will not receive a collections call to their mobile ten minutes later.

These kinds of systems even record a customer’s preferred contact details, such as time to contact and channel to use to tailor future communication, ensuring the highest possibility of success in future outreach. This leads to more efficient outreach, and better customer experiences.

Canadian banks and financial organizations have big responsibilities and their customers are telling them to embrace the digital age in their communications. By instilling confidence in newer technologies, smarter communications and embracing intelligence, organizations will increase their repayment rates. These elements will result in customized responses based on consumer feedback and a better understanding of their changing expectations. They just need to listen to the data.

Kevin Deveau is Vice President and Managing Director, Canada, at FICO. He is responsible for growing FICO’s Canadian market share and strengthening client relationships.

FICO is a leading analytics software company, helping businesses in 90+ countries make better decisions that drive higher levels of growth, profitability and customer satisfaction.

The crooks are innovating, so must CX organizations Continued from page CM 7

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLeIGWHs9g0&feature=youtu.be

mail or the most effective combination of communications channels and methods. Analytics can also ensure the proper tone and frequency are identified and utilized.

Know your customers through their data Using these systems, the analytics directing each decision receive real-time data and information such as preferred contact time and method based on customer behaviour Issue 1 • 2018

same time we’re collecting behaviour patterns on customers, we’re also collecting those same patterns on criminals.

There are also artificial intelligence (AI)-powered technologies layered together to form a profile to verify legitimate users and flag fraudulent activity, including spoofing attacks using synthetic speech, recording attacks and mimics. They analyze audio to determine device types and models used during interactions and the call metadata to identify

inconsistencies and determine phone number spoofing, and detect callers’ geographic locations via the phone network.

CM: How do voice and behavioural biometrics impact the customer experience?

BB: In the majority of instances, customers opt-in or enroll themselves for voice biometrics. By being able to simply say a phrase like, “My voice is my password,” a customer can easily and securely authenticate themselves when calling into customer service, for example. Many companies also use another layer of voice and/ or behavioural biometrics behind the scenes to further ensure that the person is who they say they are. In those cases, the customer really doesn’t even know there are technologies working on their behalf to protect their identities and personal information.

CM: How are companies in Canada using biometrics technologies? How is this impacting their customers?

BB: There are several companies in Canada using voice biometrics, including Royal Bank of Canada, Manulife and Tangerine. Royal Bank of Canada has more than one million customers using voice biometrics for easy authentication and to prevent fraudsters from illegally accessing their private financial information. One of the leading telecom services firms reported fraud reductions following voice biometrics deployment.

CM: What do you recommend companies do to ensure that they don’t become one of the dozens of hacked companies we’ve seen in the news?

BB: It is vital that companies equip themselves with robust, omnichannel security solutions. They cannot operate in silos i.e., where those in charge of the IVR contact centre are not working with those developing the mobile apps, web chats or virtual assistants.

A robust, layered approach ensures that companies will be much more likely to identify and stop fraudsters across every channel, while simultaneously improving the CX experience. Treating biometrics security as an omni-channel initiative is a win-win for businesses and their customers.

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