DIGITAL DESKTOP FOR OMNICHANNEL CUSTOMER SERVICE - INTHECHAT
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Digital Messaging for Business in 2018
Digital Desktop for Omnichannel Customer Service
Digital Messaging for Business in 2018 Introduction 1
Introduction: The Current State of
Digital Customer Service
A fundamental shift has occurred 2017: Microsoft Dynamic’s 2017
in the way that business is State of Global Customer Service
approaching strategy for digital Report highlights the continuing
desktop in the contact center. digital revolution in B2C
Companies are no longer having communications, finding that 52%
conversations about if they need of all global survey respondents
to move forward with a digital typically begin customer service
strategy, nor are they talking interactions online, jumping to
about single-platform digital 63% for millennials. Additionally,
solutions. 2018 is the year that 33% of survey respondents (and
businesses are going to make 43% of millennials) use mobile
decisions about their digital devices when they need to
desktop solutions for customer engage with customer service¹.
service.
¹ Microsoft Dynamics, 2017 State of Global Customer Service Report, 19
Digital Messaging for Business in 2018 Consolidation 2
Consolidation
When making decisions, the ques-
tions business need to be asking
Big companies themselves are:
agree: it’s time what experience do you
to move on want to deliver to your
consolidation customers?
and
Consumer expectations for how do we enable
customer service have shifted customers to get that
such that a comprehensive digital
strategy is no longer optional;
experience when, where,
companies that want to compete and how they want?
and grow in the new, hyper- Some facts to 63% of Americans prefer
competitive market landscape 63%
can either adapt or die when it consider: digital customer service²
comes to improving on customer
experience and contact center In order to compete, companies
need to implement and aggres- 66% of global consumers
agent efficiencies.
sively scale their digital customer 66% actively use 3+ customer
service channels³
This is no longer controversial, service platforms – which is why
because we’ve all seen what has comprehensive solutions that
happened to companies who allow for digital channel consoli- 75% of consumers have
have failed to keep up. dation are going to be critical for used a search engine to
companies moving forward with 75% get information before
² Twilio. Global Mobile Messaging Consumer Report 2016, 7. digital strategies in 2018. calling an agent⁴
³ Microsoft Dynamics, 2017 State of Global Customer Service Report, 19
⁴ Microsoft Dynamics, 2017 State of Global Customer Service Report, 15
Digital Messaging for Business in 2018 Consolidation 3
How ever you answer those
questions, eliminating digital
silos must be a key part of your
digital strategy. Consolidating
digital channels will allow you to
provide a frictionless customer
experience while also increasing
organizational efficiency and
improving the experience for your
contact centre agents.
Consolidation of digital
channels comes with
proven benefits that will
allow you to:
Increase revenue
Reduce costs
Solve agent problems
Improve customer
experienceDigital Messaging for Business in 2018 Consolidation: Increase Revenue 4
Increase Revenue
It makes sense for companies
to connect with consumers in a
space where they already spend a
Increase your great deal of their time: the digital
revenue by space. The digital space presents
a world of untapped sales
launching new opportunities where companies
can broaden their reach to
support channels connect with new customers
over text, messengers, and social
In fact, launching any new channel
media.
provides consumers with a
By merely opening up SMS as a
new access point for engaging “For 2018, I think
with your company – a strategy marketers will pivot
channel, companies experience
that can attract and retain new around mobile. It’s
a 17.6% increase in consumer
customers.
contacts who would have different from the year
otherwise never initiated an of mobile from the
engagement⁵. These contacts Companies who make
standard prediction
constitute a new source of themselves available
potential revenue for your
trope of previous years;
to consumers on their it’s the year mobile
company.
preferred channels becomes the starting
(Facebook Messenger, point for marketing.”
WeChat, Kik, Line) are
Joe Stanhope, vice principal
opening their doors to and principal analyst,
clients who may have Forrester
never contacted them
otherwise.
⁵ Based on metrics gathered from InTheChat clientsDigital Messaging for Business in 2018 Consolidation: Increase Revenue 5
Successfully connecting companies and
consumers via SMS.
Given that 98% of all texts are
read the same day (and 90%
are read within three minutes of
6
delivery), SMS presents a sure-fire
way of ensuring your promotional
messages are seen by your client
base.
Many companies use text blasts to
send outbound messages to their
subscribers over SMS; however,
90%
two-way SMS is even more
effective for generating revenue
because it enables your customers
to respond to your messages,
leading to conversational
engagements which can help
close sales.
of texts are read
within 3 minutes
of delivery
⁶ mobileSQUARED. Conversational Advertising.Digital Messaging for Business in 2018 Consolidation: Reduce Costs 6
Reduce Costs
Reduce costs with
the increased
efficiency of digital
messaging
However, in order to realize these
efficiency benefits, companies
need to use a consolidated digital
desktop solution; the practical
reality that companies face is that
It is inefficient
Digital messaging is
inherently efficient.
it is inefficient to have different
teams using different tools to
to have
Adopting new digital
serve customers on different different teams
channels. When you have different
channels can do much more This means that a digital agent teams for different channels, you using different
than boost revenue; it can can handle three times as many end up having staff that are only
also reduce costs. Digital customers as a call center agent partially utilized. tools serving
messaging is inherently in the same amount of time. The
savings realized through reduced Consolidating your digital customers
efficient – close to three
times more efficient than
staffing costs is considerable
and, for many companies, these
customer service onto one team
allows your staff to use their
on different
voice. savings serve as a key motivator
for launching new messaging
time efficiently, especially if they
have a digital desktop platform
channels.
channels, such as SMS, Facebook that allows for a seamless agent
Messenger, Kik, WeChat, and Line. experience across digital channels!
Above: based on metrics from InTheChat’s clients, agents spend two minutes on each customer conversation.Digital Messaging for Business in 2018 Consolidation: Reduce Costs 7
What if your customers The abandonment rate
could switch from chat to for live chat is 13.1%,
Reduce costs by SMS texting?
translating into significant
solving live chat Routing a customer’s conversation losses for companies,
abandonment from chat to a mobile number particularly when a
ensures that a customer’s
conversation is never cut short by customer abandons a
unexpected interruptions, because chat session only to
the conversation can continue contact your company
indefinitely over text. Chat-to-Text
functionality can help to eliminate again later— effectively
chat abandonment, thereby costing your company
increasing efficiencies in your two chat sessions’ worth
contact center.
of staffing time.Digital Messaging for Business in 2018 Consolidation: Solve Agent Problems 8
Solve Agent Problems
Improve agent The task-switching
necessary for managing
experience by multiple applications is not
banishing desktop only inefficient but, it also
contributes to increased
overwhelm stress and mental decline⁶.
Many companies use multiple
software platforms on one
desktop interface, leading
to desktop overwhelm – the
condition in which agents find
themselves psychologically
exhausted from switching back
and forth between applications.
The task-switching necessary for
managing multiple applications
is not only inefficient but, more
importantly, it contributes to The multichannel platform serves as a solution to desktop overwhelm
increased stress and mental by enabling agents to engage with customers over various channels
decline. Employee performance while using only one desktop interface. With multichannel platforms like
and wellness must be considered InTheChat, engaging with customers follows the same flow whether the
when implementing new channels interaction takes place over SMS, live chat, messengers, social media, or
in contact centers. email. This ease-of-use contributes to higher performance and increased
employee satisfaction.
⁶ American Psychological Association, Multitasking: Switching CostsDigital Messaging for Business in 2018 Consolidation: Disparate Team Syndrome 9
Eliminate digital The multichannel platform solves
disparate team syndrome by
silos with a providing one user interface
for SMS, social media, live chat,
consolidated digital messaging, and email. Because the
desktop user flow remains the same across
channels, all agents can follow the
same training and can work within
one consolidated team to ensure
maximum efficiency.
In addition to desktop overwhelm,
many other organizations also
experience disparate team
syndrome, where small teams are
devoted to each digital channel
(one team for live chat, one team
for social media, one team for
email, etc.) – resulting in multiple
digital silos.
Disparate digital teams are
inherently inefficient because each Additionally, CRM integration
one holds exclusive knowledge of allows agents to quickly access
the tool used for managing their customer details from the
particular channel. This means convenience of the ITC portal.
that, when one team experiences Armed with information from
heavy volumes, other digital teams previous phone/web interactions,
are not capable of helping them. agents can provide immediate
It also means that specialized assistance without customers
training needs to be developed having to reiterate their inquiries
and implemented for each team. – saving time for your team and
your customers.Digital Messaging for Business in 2018 Consolidation: Enhance Customer Experience 10
Enhance Customer Experience
Give your customers According to a recent survey
by Microsoft Dynamics, when
a truly frictionless asked what the most important
element of a good customer
customer experience service interaction was, customers
responded:
Customers don’t want to have to
stop and pick up their phone to
call you. They want to engage you
while they’re on the move, doing
what it is that they need to do in
their life. And it doesn’t matter to
them if it takes three hours to get
a problem resolved, if it’s three Additionally, the demand for time-saving,
hours on their time.
convenient B2C communications has driven the
1. Friendly service
2. Resolving issues in a single rising consumer preference for interacting with
interaction, regardless of time brands over digital channels. As Dimension Data
3. Not having to repeat myself
4. Getting information without concludes, “Customers want a frictionless, easy,
having to contact support and immediate journey on channels of their
5. Other
choice.”Digital Messaging for Business in 2018 Consolidation: Enhance Customer Experience 11 What are the digital Preferred Channel to Message Friends/Family Preferred Channel to Message Businesses channels of choice for consumers? What are the channels of choice? SMS, Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, Line, and Snapchat are the preferred messaging for consumers, according to Twilio⁷. The demand for frictionless customer experience has also made SMS the number one preferred channel for connecting with businesses. Why is SMS the universally preferred messaging channel? Because there’s no app to install. In the words of Eobard Thawne, an app is “just another barrier between me and the information I want.” Texting a company presents the easiest and quickest way for a customer to establish contact with a brand. ⁷ Twilio. Global Mobile Messaging Consumer Report 2016, 7.
Digital Messaging for Business in 2018 Consolidation: Enhance Customer Experience 12
The quick, fluid experience of contacting brands over digital channels
has generated overwhelmingly positive results. When TD Bank became
the first major bank to launch two-way SMS customer service, consumers
responded enthusiastically on Twitter, applauding the end of long wait
times and the marvelling at the immediacy of the company’s response time.
For a company that espouses the mission of providing legendary customer
experiences, becoming the first major bank to offer service over SMS and
Facebook Messenger constituted a logical step toward providing their
customers with greater access and convenience.Digital Messaging for Business in 2018 Automation: NLP and Text Analytics 13
NLP and Text Analytics
The social media space continues
to offer vast territories of
untapped sales leads. Using
Find sales leads Natural Language Processing
with automation (NLP) and text analytics,
InTheChat can sift through Twitter
through NLP and and Instagram posts to find sales
and retention opportunities for
text analytics your company while filtering out
non-relevant content - saving your
team’s precious time and enabling
them to focus on valuable
opportunities.
This allows you to connect with
consumers in the space where
they work and play. People today
spend an average of 28+ hours
per week online, and 2 hours and
14 minutes per day on their mobile
phones⁸. Why not meet them in
the places where they spend the
majority of their free time?
⁸ We Are Social & Hootsutie. Digital in 2017: Global Overview. Above: an example of TD Ameritrade using NLP and text analytics to efficiently
search Twitter for potential investors.Digital Messaging for Business in 2018 Automation: NLP and Text Analytics 14
How does it work?
ITC works with your company
to determine a set of key terms.
ITC’s algorithm then scours social
media for these terms, while
discarding irrelevant posts. ITC’s
proprietary text analytics can
categorize messages by type (ex.
sales, service, technical support),
by region/language, or by other
customized classifications. These
categorized messages are sent to
agents having expertise in these
specific areas.
Speed and efficiency.
Your agents are only presented
with high-value engagement
opportunities, allowing them to
quickly reach out to consumers
for sales and retention purposes –
before it’s too late.
Proven results.
Since 2014, various enterprise-
level companies have benefited
from ITC’s NLP-powered social
media. Example: Thanks to NLP-
based efficiency gains, one of
ITC’s clients was able to reduce
staffing by 30% while doubling
interactions with customers.Digital Messaging for Business in 2018 Automation: NLP and Text Analytics 15
Boost conversion Having access to a digital assistant
at this point in the information
rates by keeping gathering phase can help guide
prospective customers through
consumers online the registration process and
lead to conversions that would
never have happened otherwise.
Take McKinsey & Company’s A simple pop up with a link to
study on the customer journey assistance via SMS, live chat, or
involved in finding a bank loan messengers keeps your prospects
(see opposite). Starting with a engaged and online while
sample size of 100 000 potential receiving the information they
customers, the vast majority need to finalize their transactions.
(94%) start their information Keeping customers online and on
gathering phase online. Of the track results in higher conversion
78 000 who arrive at the bank’s rates and in substantial revenue
website, only 15 000 end up gains for your company.
completing the bank’s online
registration form. This means that
81% of these consumers abandon
their journey before registering for
a loan. Above chart from McKinsey Quarterly, 2017 Issue 1Digital Messaging for Business in 2018 Automation: Chatbots 16
Chatbots
How it works
Increase efficiency ITC uses text analytics and
Natural Language Processing to
with AI and chatbots analyse your customers’ incoming
messages and send them to
the most appropriate agent for
engagement. Agents can focus
on messages pertaining to their
Increasing Efficiencies specialization areas, ensuring
through Artificial speedy, knowledgeable, and high-
Intelligence (AI) quality responses.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help Another way that Chatbots
boost efficiencies through text offer time-saving efficiency
analytics: is by analyzing inquiries and
responding to general questions
• Text analytics can categorize before customers begin to interact
messages by topic and route with real, human agents. Before
them to the most appropriate even beginning the conversation
agent for engagement. with the customer, the agent
• Text analytics can also be used will have been provided with
for combing through social information about the customer
media streams and selecting inquiry – eliminating the time that
tweets and posts that are most would have initially been spent
relevant for your team – saving conversing with the customer
your team hours of valuable – and increasing customer
agent time. satisfaction by not requiring
customers to repeat information in
order to get assistance.Digital Messaging for Business in 2018 Automation: Chatbots 17
Chatbot Best Practices 4. Start with simple cases
2. Set expectations
Important
considerations and
best practices for
building chatbots
Start with simple cases: by letting
bots assist agents in handling
Rules to follow: frequent, common issues. Then
evaluate the bot’s performance
1. Visualize the conversation Be upfront about being a bot. before adding more complex
issues.
3. Provide a help option 5. Never be more than
one click away from an
agent
5. Get feedback: study bot
conversations and look for where
they didn’t work. Ask how you can
re-train the bot to do better.
Map the conversation with
a tree diagram to define bot
requirements and to use in testing Provide a help option that
includes which requests the bot
can handle and how to select
those optionsDigital Messaging for Business in 2018 Automation: Chatbots 18
Types of Chatbots
Bot conversation
strategies
A guide to chatbot
conversational ‘Menu-Based’ Bots
approaches • Customer selects options and
flows through a series of buttons
that lead to an ‘answer’
• Great for common questions
• Helps ensure that neither bot
nor customer goes down a path
that is unrelated to the bot’s
Button/Directory-Based
Conversational
capability. (i.e. no opportunity
Menu-based bots to ask an insurance company for
ensure that the peperoni pizza )
interaction remains • Additional Natural Language
Processing can be included
in the scope of the
bot’s ability to assist. ‘Conversational’ Bots
• True natural language
automation from question to
Conversational bots answer
require more time • Most enjoyable for the
Additional Consideration:
and training, but are customer (if answered correctly)
Is Authentication Needed?
• Requires continual training and
more enjoyable for a ‘brain’ with insights
consumers (if the bot • Better for larger scope of Depending on what type
of service is provided, an
is able to understand questions and answers
authentication process may need
• Prone to higher degree of out-
them correctly). of-scope questions and risk the to be created
bot won’t understand
• Longer Development TimeDigital Messaging for Business in 2018 Automation: Chatbots 19
Chatbot Conversation Flow
1. ITC receives a message from a user on a given channel (Twitter,
Facebook, etc).
2. ITC sends message information to the bot if it’s a new
conversation or the user is currently engaged with the bot.
(Otherwise, the message goes to the human currently handling the
case.)
3. If no escalation is needed, the bot sends a message to the user
via ITC
4. If escalation is needed, conversation is transferred to a human
agentDigital Messaging for Business in 2018 Automation: Chatbots 20
Visual IVR Bots
Enable quick self-
service with menu-
based chatbots
There’s a reason why This same strategy needs to
be applied to digital, if fully
IVR has become industry implementing a digital strategy
standard for phone- is to be successful. Requiring
based customer service; every digital interaction to be
handled by a human is inefficient
it enables self-service for and will act as a barrier to scaling
customer issues that are up your digital customer service
both simple and routine, to meet the rapidly changing
communications needs of
diverting call volume your customers. It’s crucial to
from call center staff. implement chat bots that can
properly transfer to agents and
use NLP to perform skills-based
routing, so the agent with the
right skills can deal with the right
message.Digital Messaging for Business in 2018 Automation: Chatbots 21
Increase satisfaction
and customer
engagement
Customer opinions about
chatbots are changing; consumers
increasingly see chatbots as a
time-saving convenience that
can allow them to save time
and frustration in resolving
their customer service issues.
According to a report by Myclever,
nearly 1 in 5 consumers (18%)
say they have avoided calling a According to the same report,
business to avoid the aggravation when asked to evaluate customer
of phone menus; this number service channels by benefits
increases to a whopping 61% in delivered, consumers ranked
those under 24! chatbots second - behind only
face-to-face interactions – ahead
of: email, web chat, phone,
website, social media, letter, and
native apps.
⁸ MyClever. Chatbots: A Consumer Research StudyDigital Messaging for Business in 2018 Authentication 22
Authentication
The solution: secure
authentication that briefly
Empower agents diverts customers off-channel
in a seamless way to verify their
to fully assist identity before returning to that
same digital channel to complete
customers on digital the interaction – allowing for a
channels fluid user experience for both
parties.
There are a variety of options for
this authentication: authentication
Secure authentication is essential by SMS, by secure web form, or
for verifying your customers’ by integration with the company’s
identities and for enabling your CRM. This authentication can
agents to fulfill customer requests also be handled automatically, or
while protecting the security manually by a live agent.
of their personally-identifiable
information (PPI) – without having
to switch to phone. However,
when digital engagements
require an exchange of sensitive
information, the conversation
must be transferred to a secure
channel, which interrupts the
agent’s workflow and increases
customer frustration.Digital Messaging for Business in 2018 Conclusion 23
In Conclusion
The time to move forward
on a consolidated digital
2018 is the year to desktop solution is now.
2018 is the year that big
move on decisions companies are making
about digital decisions to implement their
customer service digital strategy that focuses
on the new differentiator of
customer experience, in order
to make it frictionless and
favorable.
The time of conversations
about if companies are going
to adopt digital channels for
customer service has passed;
The wave of digital is coming,
and you can either figure out
how to scale digital and serve
customers really well, or
bury your head in the sand –
expecting that this trend will
pass by – and get buried.Digital Messaging for Business in 2018
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