CCaaS E Book

The Connection Between CCaaS Solutions and Your Customer’s KPIs By John Paullin | AVANT Director of Engineering GOAVANT.NET

THE SOLUTION IS IN THE DETAILS Approaching CCaaS Conversations with Prospects We at AVANT have been emphasizing the benefits of Contact Center as a Service, or CCaaS, for years. The elimination of pesky hardware and software maintenance contracts and end-of-life deadlines, as well as the ability to scale as agent headcount fluctuates, are strong indicators that CCaaS is a foolproof solution for your customer’s organization. CCaaS solutions often come with features like global reach, pre-built CRM (Customer Relationship Management) integrations, AI solutions, and a plethora of omni-channel capabilities. The list goes on, and while these many benefits are important to a prospect, they alone will likely not convince customers to adopt a CCaaS platform. It takes a deeper level of inquiry to identify what metrics matter most to a contact center prospect, as well as how a modern contact center solution can positively impact those key metrics. GOAVANT.NET

There are countless CCaaS-related statistics that measure everything from customer satisfaction to digital adoption trends. While they may vary depending on source and time of publication, the central message remains the same: if a given brand doesn’t provide efficient self-service capabilities, digital support channels, or a means of arming agents with the right information at the right time to resolve issues on the first engagement, brand loyalty will suffer. Customers will move on. Agents will quit. So, where do Key Performance Indicators, or KPIs, come in? All of the above has a serious impact on an organization’s bottom line, and a new or updated CCaaS platform can be the solution that positively impacts KPIs, which tend to demonstrate where that bottom line is trending. Understanding the KPIs your prospect and their organization are focused on will help you as a Trusted Advisor better assess the challenges that need to be solved, thus allowing you to clearly explain why a prospect should take the time to examine our CCaaS vendors. GOAVANT.NET

Let’s examine some of those common KPIs. Fundamentally, all contact centers are focused on KPIs that measure one or more of the following: Productivity Quality Performance Which in turn influence: Costs Revenue Customer Experience GOAVANT.NET

As a Trusted Advisor, you must ask your prospects what their actual KPI numbers are to identify areas for improvement. If productivity, quality, and performance are our starting points, then it’s up to you to dive deeper to understand exactly what goals - and related KPIs - your prospects are focusing on. The following chart provides examples of some common and specific KPIs that a contact center could potentially solve. Productivity Quality Performance Calls (interactions) per hour Service level Customer save rates Average handle time Quality evaluation scores Sales rates Average wrap time % of complaint calls Number of new leads sourced Average time to answer Customer survey results New customers acquired First contact resolution E-learning test scores Identification of operation issues % of calls handled by IVR and web Appropriate use of wrap-up system Identification of competitive challenges Occupancy rate Adherence to policies / procedures Abandoned call rates GOAVANT.NET

3 COMMON KPIS CCAAS CAN SOLVE FOR Productivity + CCaaS One of the most common KPIs groups that CCaaS can positively impact solve for are those that measure is productivity. If your prospect is focused on improving their productivity metrics, they will want to see sustained or improved performance from their own agents, often measured by the number of calls taken or lost, as well as the time spent answering and resolving customer concerns. Of course, productivity is a broad KPI that can be narrowed down to a more specific goal, and therefore, a more specific KPI. Average Speed to Answer Let’s begin with one of those specific KPIs – Average Speed to Answer (or ASA). This measures how long it takes for an agent to answer an inbound customer call, including the time a customer spent waiting on hold while in queue. Consider the fact that many customer service numbers are toll-free, meaning the caller isn’t charged a per-minute rate, but the company being called certainly is. That’s why keeping the ASA as low as possible is in everyone’s best interest. For companies, their toll-free costs are reduced and more importantly, customers don’t get upset with waiting too long. How can a CCaaS solution help to reduce ASA? One strategy involves implementing a simple feature available with most vendors called Queue Call Back. As the name implies, a caller can choose to save their place in the queue and receive a call back from an agent when one is available. The caller hangs up, thus stopping the toll-free meter from running. The benefit is twofold. The customer gets to move on with their day, and the contact center spends less on toll-free charges. GOAVANT.NET

Another option is to deflect as many calls as possible using self-service solutions (like a well-built online knowledge base, chatbots, or voicebots), digital channels (like live chat with a human agent or SMS), and even leveraging social media channels (like Facebook and Twitter). Deflecting phone calls with one of these methods can free up the phone channel for more complex interactions, which are typically less frequent. With fewer phone calls, as well as enabling Queue Call Back, ASA should decrease. Occupancy Rate Another productivity KPI to inquire about as a Trusted Advisor is Occupancy Rate. This measures the amount of time it takes for an agent to actively assist a customer, as well as finish post-call wrap-up work. Wrap-up includes taking notes and completing other steps in the workflow before fielding another customer interaction. While a contact center supervisor obviously wants their agents to be working most of the time, having a very high Occupancy Rate actually tends to burn out agents, resulting in higher agent attrition. It’s also often indicative of having too few agents for a given shift. While not a universal truth for all, an Occupancy Rate of 75% tends to be ideal i.e., agents working for 45 minutes of every hour. How could a CCaaS solution impact Occupancy Rates? So, we know that an Occupancy Rate that is too high can have negative consequences. As mentioned, this can look like agent burn out for some, or poor workflow management for others. This is often revealed if agents are spending too much time on specific steps, like searching for the answer to a customer question or detailing the call in their wrap-up documentation. On the other hand, a dramatically low occupancy rate could mean agents aren’t adhering correctly to their schedule. A Workforce Management (WFM) solution could be the answer. GOAVANT.NET

All major CCaaS vendors either partner with or offer their own proprietary Workforce Management (WFM) solution. These tools help supervisors schedule their agents in the most efficient manner, ensuring you don’t have too few or too many agents in each shift. These tools also help measure adherence to a schedule e.g., are agents taking too many breaks at the wrong time. An Occupancy Rate that is too high may also indicate that their workflow could use some improvement. For instance, perhaps agents spend too much time with wrap-up work. By integrating with leading CRMs like Salesforce and leveraging AI assistants, some of the agent workflow, like saving a transcript to a case and adding a disposition code, can be automated. This saves time, and time is money! The bottom line? As a Trusted Advisor, you must dig into your prospect’s productivity metrics and use your knowledge of CCaaS technology to pinpoint where efficiency gains are to be had and what CCaaS features could be the answer. GOAVANT.NET

Quality + CCaaS Quality metrics are possibly the most obvious KPI group to consider for many businesses, but it’s a general one to be sure. At the most basic level, these answer the “How are my agents doing?” question. However, it can be difficult to quantify as a broad goal. Once again, that’s why it’s helpful to break down the goal into something more specific that can be tracked, monitored, and ideally, improved! Remember, these metrics are often the result of customer response, as they are the ones whose opinions matter the most in this instance. GOAVANT.NET

Customer Satisfaction While customer satisfaction (CSAT) can be measured in many ways, one of the most typical methods is to capture a customer’s response via post-interaction surveys offered over the phone, via email, SMS, or at the conclusion of an online chat session. While numbers vary across industries and verticals, CSAT survey response rates tend to fall between 10-30%. How can a CCaaS solution impact Customer Satisfaction? Modern CCaaS solutions offer another means of measuring customer satisfaction – sentiment analysis. This technology enables contact center leaders to essentially “see” customer emotion, either in real-time or as a recording, through a visual dashboard that monitors all phone calls and other digital channels. Moments perceived to be negative because the customer used harsh language or had an annoyed tone of voice are indicated by a symbol such as a sad emoji or a thumbs down. Positive and neutral moments have different symbols. Rarely do people complete CSAT surveys when they’re happy. With sentiment analysis, a supervisor can see a customer’s response along the entire interaction across a spectrum of emotions. Using this information to coach agents and/or redesign workflows can pay dividends through happier, repeat customers. To differentiate one’s brand through top-tier customer service, a company needs as much data as possible to derive insights from, and modern CCaaS platforms with sentiment analysis offer those capabilities. Sentiment analysis software is typically baked into a modern CCaaS solution or is available as a feature add-on (either proprietary or a 3rd party). GOAVANT.NET

How else can a CCaaS solution impact Customer Satisfaction? Going hand in hand with sentiment analysis software, AI- powered agent assistants are often baked into the native CCaaS agent interface and are available as a bundled or add-on feature. These tools can provide real-time guidance to human agents interacting with customers, by phone or a digital channel. This can come in the form of on-screen messages advising an agent to slow their rate of speech or cease interrupting the customer, as well as knowledge-base lookups that save the agent time researching the answer they need. These “robotic assistants” can also provide next-best action suggestions, making agent workflows more efficient. While human supervisors cannot actively listen to 100% of their agent’s calls, CCaaS with Agent Assist software certainly can, expediting agent ramp-up time and optimizing coaching/education initiatives. Human agents make up approximately 80% the cost of a contact center, so efforts to develop talent can help lower agent attrition rates and increase customer satisfaction results, both of which contribute to a business’s overall revenue. The bottom line? As a Trusted Advisor, it’s important to understand the strong connection between the goals of your prospect and the CCaaS features that can offer the answer to achieving their goals. Adopting a CCaaS platform with the right features unlocks the power to separate one’s brand from the GOAVANT.NET

Performance + CCaaS Is improved performance of your prospect’s workforce the main KPI they hope to hit for their organization? If so, you can presume they are a more sales- and marketing-focused business, which is helpful information to store as you search for the right provider for their technology framework. That said, customer retention in the customer service contact center is also a measure example of a performance KPI. Data Analysis As we all know, sales is a numbers game. For organizations with inside sales teams, as well as those that engage in some form of marketing outreach, minimizing costs and maximizing revenue is the name of that game. And the truth is that data is going to be the one of the true equalizers in understanding performance. How can a CCaaS solution help improve data analysis? Ask your prospects the question, “Do you possess the technology to automate and optimize sales and marketing outreach across a variety of voice and digital channels?” If the answer is no, then CCaaS is the clear solution to turning their no into a yes. With the ability to integrate with a vast number of data sources, including many leading CRMs and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems, modern CCaaS solutions provide a wealth of data analysis tools to help adopters measure their performance. For instance, telephone outreach campaigns can be designed more efficiently using historical and real-time data to determine on a granular basis (typically hourly) the best ratio of outbound calls per agent to connect as many callers to agents as possible and increase the likelihood of a sale. Similar analytics can be conducted on digital campaigns (predominantly email and SMS). GOAVANT.NET

Customer Acquisition One of the cutting-edge technologies entering the scene allows adopters to document in real-time a website (or mobile app) visitor’s “journey” through the interface. A good question for Trusted Advisors to ask any prospect with at least some of their sales generated through e-commerce on its website is whether they can track visitor activity today. Additionally, it’s important to ask if they know how many customers typically leave items in their shopping cart before leaving the page. The missing sales revenue can be substantial. As sales is the lifeblood for any company, increasing sales performance is a never-ending objective. Exploring CCaaS solutions that enable your prospect to predict with growing accuracy the right moment to strategically offer a chatbot or a knowledge-based article to the website visitor can make all the difference in inspiring the visitor to stay longer and even make a sale. Furthermore, integrating various data sources can generate not only a well-timed chatbot but one that tailors its messaging to the website visitor. For example, “Hello, John. Welcome back! Are you interested in purchasing item XYZ again?” New customer acquisition rates will increase, as will customer satisfaction results, due to the enhanced customer service these personalized engagements facilitate. GOAVANT.NET

KPIs - Your Secret to Successfully Serving Your Prospects CCaaS While the topic of KPIs can be quite dry on its own, the fact of the matter is that key performance indicators are extremely important. Not only do they provide measurable financial justification for a CCaaS solution through an ROI analysis, but they also present opportunities for Trusted Advisors to discuss the art of what exactly is possible. When analyzing a prospect’s KPIs, think about the capabilities modern CCaaS solutions bring and ask the “what if” questions to generate ideas. “What if you had the ability to shave 30 seconds off your live agent phone calls by gathering basic information upfront via voice or chatbot while the customer is on hold?” “What if you could proactively offer a coupon via a well-timed chatbot to an eCommerce prospect who has had an expensive item in their shopping cart for 30 minutes?” The KPIs may seem like a minor detail, but oftentimes, the solution is in the details. You just need to dig deeper and ask the right questions to find it. GOAVANT.NET