Bringing Data + Digital

Together to Deliver a
Smart Interaction Center

featuring research from forrester

Embrace Continuous Improvement To

Power Customer Service Operations
 2

Bringing Data + Digital Together to

Deliver a Smart Interaction Center
Consumer expectations for simple, intelligent and empathetic service have never been greater.
Great customer service that delivers—and exceeds—what customers expect requires data-driven
personalization strategies enhanced with artificial intelligence (AI) and digital capabilities.

Consumers now expect companies to know them, their buying habits and their preferences. They want
to be advised, enabled and wowed. Companies that meet these demands will thrive. An enhanced
experience can pay big dividends: 86% of customers are willing to pay a premium for great service.
Conversely, companies failing to meet these expectations will lose customers to competitors who can.
In this
document
Delivering exceptional experiences requires companies to combine customer-centric ways with new
strategies and techniques empowered by data, analytics and AI. Organizations must build experiences
2 Bringing Data +
Digital Together on these four key principles:
to Deliver a Smart
Interaction Center

CUSTOMERS ARE MOBILE, CONNECTED AND SMART AND CONTACT CENTERS NEED TO
4 Research From EVOLVE WITH THEM.
Forrester: Embrace
Customers should have options to connect via voice, mobile, web, social, chat or video. This requires
Continuous
Improvement To integrating data from multiple sources and combining it into a single view of a customer that is
Power Customer accessible from any channel. This ability to provide seamless support across multiple channels is table
Service Operations
stakes and contact centers need to have more access to whom the customer is and how to connect
with them via personalized interactions at the right moment of their journey.
18 About Cognizant

CHANNEL NEED TO BE ORCHESTRATED TO DELIVER CONTEXT AND INTENT SEAMLESSLY.

While many customers prefer self-service options, service reps need to proactively intervene when
those options do not meet customer expectations. Those handoffs between digital and human
intervention must be natural and seamless so that customers are not left frustrated and stuck in
“repeat” mode. To accomplish this, every channel must be equipped to recognize customers are
individuals and require experiences unique to their needs and persona. Biometric authentication,
including voice, fingerprint and facial recognition, can now swiftly identify individuals. Platform-
based solutions with data orchestration layers deliver an intelligent, single view of a customer
across all channels by connecting data from underlying disparate systems. Combining these
tools makes a seamless experience possible. After authenticating in one channel, customers can
continue their journey in another channel that retains their login credentials, service needs and any
other information pertinent to the experience.
3

ORGANIZATIONS NEED TO BE MINDFUL OF EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE AS FUEL TO CX.

Some moments in the customer journey, such as a complex query or customer preference for voice interaction,
demand human intervention. Digital agents may be equipped with personalization tools, customer analytics
and insights to anticipate when help is needed, to rapidly respond with context-appropriate aid and to hand off
problems that require assistance only a human can provide. AI solutions then augment the power of those human
agents. Agents equipped with real-time data and next-best action insights into the customer’s journey as it is
unfolding can offer on-target recommendations and/or personal touches that help the customer feel valued.

DIGITAL AGE IS DRIVING CONTACT CENTERS TO BE MORE PROFIT-ORIENTED.

Businesses have started realizing the value of the service channel (the hidden channel), as a potential source
of revenue and are looking at leveraging the ‘sales through service’ model, for additional revenue generation.
The telecom industry has been an early adopter of the ‘sales through service model’ and gradually, the banking,
insurance and travel industries are waking up to the potential of this promising channel. McKinsey reports that
revenue potential is as high as 25% for credit card companies and 60% for telecom companies.

For example, advanced analytics help power the success of a large beverage manufacturer’s move from a single-
channel customer service approach to a fully omnichannel strategy, delivering always-available omnichannel
support and e-commerce capabilities. The analytics provide relevant, personalized information based on customer
segment, history and actions across voice, chat, video chat and web self-service tools. Since deploying the
solutions, the company has increased their customer retention and acquisition by 15% and seen sales rise by
$150 million.
4

Embrace Continuous Improvement To Power

Customer Service Operations
Continuous Improvement: The Contact Centers For Customer Service Playbook

by Kate Leggett and Art Schoeller

August 3, 2018

Why Read This Report Key Takeaways

Companies struggle to deliver effective, Customer Service Is A Key Company
personal customer service that meets customer Differentiator
expectations and doesn’t break the bank. Failing to meet customer expectations is costly
Application development and delivery (AD&D) to companies and causes customer defection.
pros can improve customer service delivery Companies must embrace a continuous
by solidifying existing foundations, choosing a improvement mindset to stay competitive.
pragmatic approach to benchmarking current Conversely, great customer service boosts
operations, and investing in initiatives that have customer loyalty and aids in competitive
real impact. This report provides a framework differentiation.
for how to embrace continuous improvement for
Solidify Customer Service Foundations Before
customer service.
Embarking On Improvements
This is an update of a previously published report; Customer service teams must align customer
Forrester reviews and updates it periodically for service project objectives with company
continued relevance and accuracy. objectives, build solid cross-functional
governance programs, and invest in technologies
that will support current and future efforts.

Iterate Processes And Applications To Achieve

Customer Service Success
Big-bang approaches to improving operations
rarely work. Smart project teams focus on small
initiatives that deliver measurable results. They
also continuously measure results and take
corrective action early to keep initiatives on track.

forrester.com
5
For Application Development & Delivery Professionals

Embrace Continuous Improvement To Power Customer Service

Operations
Continuous Improvement: The Contact Centers For Customer Service Playbook

by Kate Leggett and Art Schoeller

with Daniel Hong, Sarah Dawson, and Shayna Neuburg
August 3, 2018

Table Of Contents Related Research Documents

Poor Service Frustrates Customers And 2018 Customer Service Trends: How Operations
Escalates Costs Become Faster, Cheaper — And Yet, More
Human
Shore Up Your Customer Service Foundation
Transform The Contact Center For Customer
Get Your Basics In Place
Service Excellence
Be Pragmatic When Improving Operations
Win Funding For Your Customer Service Project
Stay Abreast Of Customer Expectations

Benchmark Operations Against Best Practices

Monitor Success Metrics To Assess Customer Share reports with colleagues.

Service Program Effectiveness Enhance your membership with
Case Studies: Big Visions Are Achieved Through Research Share.
Continuous Efforts

Case Study: Australia Post Transforms Its

Customer Service With New Technology

Case Study: A Major Telecom Provider Aligns

Tactical Initiatives To Company Strategy

Recommendations

Prove The Value By Starting Small

Supplemental Material

Forrester Research, Inc., 60 Acorn Park Drive, Cambridge, MA 02140 USA

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6

Poor Service Frustrates Customers And Escalates Costs

Successful customer service operations boost customer retention and average customer lifetime
value — ultimately influencing profitability and revenue. However, implementing a world-class
customer service program is hard, and companies still focus on cost control or tactical measures to
put out fires. Only 21% of global purchase influencers at firms that are prioritizing improving customer
experience are creating a dedicated user group for customer experience initiatives.1

However, failing to meet customer expectations is costly. Forrester estimates that unnecessary service
costs to online retailers due to channel escalation are $22 million, on average.2 In addition, poor
customer service experiences lead to customer defection and service loss, with 47% of US online
adults very likely to abandon their purchase if they cannot find a quick answer to their questions.3
Continuously improving customer service delivery is no longer a nice-to-have — with so much at stake,
it’s an imperative. AD&D leaders in customer service struggle with:

›› Delivering consistent omnichannel experiences. Your customers are dealing with only one
company, and they expect to see that same company no matter which communication channel or
touchpoint they use.4 The alignment of current governance processes and policies — siloed efforts
for mobile, web, phone, etc. — results in a fractured experience for customers depending on which
device and communication channel they choose.

›› Offering a one-size-fits-all level of service. Many companies have only just started to explore
personalized customer service, using rule-based or simple decisioning based on the past purchase
history, interaction history, and personas of their customer base.5 Most companies offer the same
level and quality of service for all customers, leading to missed opportunities for targeted cross-
selling and upselling.

›› Improving efficiencies. A customer service experience must be efficient. However, agents often
use multiple disconnected applications to resolve a single customer issue. Service managers
cannot enforce a standardized discovery process across the applications that agents use, which
hurts agent consistency and productivity, increases training times, and leads to a higher level of
agent turnover due to frustration with the tool set.

›› Providing reactive, not proactive, customer service. Customers want full disclosure of issues
with the products and services they have purchased. They want to be notified, for example, that
a new software patch is available for their device before they detect the problem. And better yet,
they want this proactive service to happen, whenever possible, behind the scenes, so problems are
addressed before they occur. Companies that proactively engage their customers typically do so
via one-way communications that are siloed across channels and often lack personalization.6

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7

Shore Up Your Customer Service Foundation

Customer service organizations are oftentimes unable to focus on strategic initiatives that
fundamentally move the needle on the quality of service operations. Tactically, this means that
customer service organizations (see Figure 1):

›› Are mired in tactical firefighting. Many customer service organizations do not correctly categorize
incoming contacts and struggle to route calls to the right agents. They do not empower agents with
relevant information to address a customer question. They struggle to accurately forecast contact
loads due to poor workforce management practices and staffing challenges. These issues lead
to high handle times and transfer rates, increased costs, and poor customer satisfaction scores.
They also use up management resources on tactical firefighting activities to adhere to established
service-level agreements.

›› Fail to adopt best practices for customer service. There are well-established best practices
focused on technology, business processes, and organizational activities for all aspects of
customer service operations — from handling incoming calls and call resolution to managing staff
and forecasting. But many customer service organizations fail to embrace these best practices,
which leads to undifferentiated and suboptimal service.7

›› Spend little time on differentiation. Consumers contact customer service at an increased rate,
and over a greater number of channels, compared to historical contact volumes. Contact centers
react by adding headcount, which is economically unsustainable. Attention to daily firefighting
activities and a limited focus on best-practice alignment mean that contact centers can’t put plans
in place to fundamentally transform operations to get ahead of escalating costs by re-engineering
processes, adding AI and automation wherever possible, and exploring emerging channels.

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8

FIGURE 1 Companies Must Set Their Sights On Strategic Differentiation, Not Firefighting

Current time
allocation: 75% 25% 0%

Alignment with best

Firefighting practices Differentiation
• High handle times • Escalating costs • Re-engineer
• Misrouted calls • Outdated technology processes

• Inconsistent • Inflexible staffing • Infuse processes with

resolutions practices AI and automation

• Staffing emergencies • No performance • Explore emerging

management channels
• Hiring challenges
• Misaligned success
metrics

Survival Me-too Unique position

Proposed time
25% 15% 60%
allocation:

Source: Andrew Reise Consulting

Get Your Basics In Place

To provide a consistent, value-added experience across all communication channels, AD&D pros at
customer service organizations need to get their basics in place and:

›› Define specific customer service objectives. You can’t measure something you haven’t defined.
Creating baseline objectives for customer service that align to your company brand proposition
allows you to focus the program directly on desired customer behavior and guides the direction of
the program.

›› Build a solid governance program. Most companies offer multiple touchpoints to interact with
their customers, such as social, mobile, web, digital (email, chat, messaging), and voice, each
of which is typically owned by a different functional organization.8 Companies must invest in
solid governance programs to ensure consistent policies for technology purchases, deployment,
integration, data sharing, business process execution, and measurement of success.

›› Deploy technologies that will be supported in the long run. The customer service technology
landscape is complex. It comprises best-in-breed and suite solutions from vendors that have gone
through acquisitions in the past several years as this technology sector has consolidated.9 Make

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9

sure you invest in the right choice of technology from a viable vendor. Put effort into integrating
customer service solutions with other front- and back-end systems that are required to support the
customer journey.

Be Pragmatic When Improving Operations

Based on our research across industries and our conversations with customer service leaders, we’ve
identified three areas of focus that you should be continuously evaluating to deliver on-target service.

Stay Abreast Of Customer Expectations

Start by understanding who your customers are — and their expectations for support and channel
preference. Specifically:

›› Shore up the foundations of self-service. Forrester data shows that 40% of US online adults
prefer to use web, mobile, or voice self-service over speaking with an agent on the phone.10
Furthermore, Forrester data also shows that 37% of US online adults prefer to use digital
customer service rather than speak with a live person on the phone.11 Understand industry-
and demographic-specific customer channel preferences. Use this data to architect a channel
deployment road map aligned to your customers’ expectations.

›› Understand the journeys that customers want to take with you. Customers want to be able
to start an interaction in one channel and continue it in another without having to restart the
conversation. Map these cross-channel journeys to effectively support customers. Make sure that
channels are integrated, that the context of an inquiry can be passed from one channel to another,
and that customer service agents have access to a customer’s interaction history across channels.

›› Collect structured and unstructured feedback. After every interaction, irrespective of

communication channel, survey your customers on the effectiveness of the service delivered.
Associate this feedback with the customer record, and use it to personalize future interactions.
Map this feedback to the customer service agent, and use it for targeted coaching. Collect
unstructured feedback via social listening and speech and text analytics to understand and act on
emotion in customer service interactions.

Benchmark Operations Against Best Practices

There are well-defined best practices for building high-quality customer service experiences that align
with customer expectations.12 Continuous improvement efforts should include periodic benchmarking
of current operations against this best-practice framework. Your analysis will pinpoint the process,
technology, and organizational improvements most in need of innovation:

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10

›› Process. Make sure that your case management, omnichannel communication, and field service
processes are consistent across channels. Pay attention to routing interactions to the right agent;
ensuring appropriate case dispositioning; resolving issues efficiently; supporting agents with
knowledge; and presenting the right data to the agent to allow for personalization and differentiated
service experiences.

›› Technology. Modern customer service applications are at the heart of providing good service
experiences. AI-powered agent desktop solutions effectively support agents over the breadth of
engagement channels. They include insights that drive decision making and help guide agents
through complex processes. These applications should also be easily integrated into your
ecosystem and scalable to current and future needs.

›› Organization. Customer service agent training, management, and career pathing to ensure
employee satisfaction are the most overlooked business practices within contact centers. Pay
attention to the culture within your organization, leadership practices, collaboration methods,
education, and performance measurement approaches to decrease attrition.

Monitor Success Metrics To Assess Customer Service Program Effectiveness

Customer service decision makers struggle to quantify results of customer service projects, as
measuring success can be difficult. It’s easy to become distracted by the sheer volume of metrics
available for tracking operational activities and then fail to deliver on key business goals.

To keep customer service continuous improvement projects focused, closely track a small number of
key performance indicators (KPIs) that support operational success. These are high-level metrics that
are typically reported to executive management, and they should form a Balanced Scorecard of cost,
satisfaction, revenue, and compliance. Once you’ve defined KPIs, choose operational metrics that
measure granular activities, such as agent productivity, which are aligned to the KPIs. Project teams
must set clear objectives for these metrics and measure their progress to build confidence in their
ability to execute and win executive support for ongoing work (see Figure 2).

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11

FIGURE 2 Key Performance Indicators And Operational Metrics For Customer Service Initiatives

KPIs measuring customer

service outcomes Operational metrics measuring activities

Agent productivity Cost of service • Average handle time

metrics • Average talk time
• Dead air percentage
• Number of cases handled
• Number of holds per call
• Agent turnover
• Agent training time to proficiency

Service operations • Conversion ratio • Forecasted versus actual contact load

metrics • Cross-sell/upsell revenue • Contact volume by communication
generated channel
• Number of product • Average contact value
upgrades • Policy/regulatory compliance
• Fines or penalties incurred • Schedule adherence
• Shrinkage
• Service level
• Service-level agreement adherence
• Escalation rate to second-tier support
• Number of contact transfers
• Abandon rate
• Average speed of answer

Customer satisfaction • Net Promoter Score (NPS)* • First-contact resolution

metrics • Customer effort score • Recontact rate
• Customer lifetime value • Contact quality
• Customer retention • Postcontact survey results
• Likelihood to recommend • Number of holds during a call
• Reluctance to switch • Social posts and sentiment analysis
brands

* Net Promoter and NPS are registered service marks, and Net Promoter Score
is a service mark, of Bain & Company, Inc., Satmetrix Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.

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12

Case Studies: Big Visions Are Achieved Through Continuous Efforts

Customer service operations are moving away from being managed as cost centers to being managed
via a pragmatic balance between cost of operations and customer satisfaction metrics. This focus
requires an understanding of and alignment with a company’s overall customer engagement strategy and
a continued evaluation of customer requirements. It also takes an organization that is agile — quickly able
to execute on changes and brave enough to invest in new technologies to exploit new insights.

Case Study: Australia Post Transforms Its Customer Service With New Technology
Australia Post (AusPost) collects, processes, and delivers parcels all across Australia and
internationally. It also provides third-party agency services that connect consumers, businesses, and
government bodies. The quality of its customer service suffered due to an inefficient, 14-year-old
homegrown system that prevented agents from tracking parcels in real time, as it was not integrated
with the company’s back-office SAP solution. To transform its customer service, AusPost:

›› Implemented new technology and merged business units. AusPost, with the help of Bluewolf
(IBM), implemented Salesforce’s Communities and Service Cloud offerings and integrated these
solutions with Genesys and SAP. It merged three customer-facing business units using different
CRM tools into one unit in order to standardize customer engagement.

›› Improved reporting and simplified the agent experience. This project helped reduce costs
and increase accountability through better reporting. AusPost saw over 100,000 customer
portal logins in the first month — with a 70% revisit rate — and 1,000 new registrations for its
business portal, with most customers having it as their preferred medium of contact. AusPost
also simplified the agent experience. Searching for a parcel request now takes two screens and
11 clicks instead of nine screens and 160 clicks. This project is serving as a foundation for an
enterprisewide digital transformation.

Case Study: A Major Telecom Provider Aligns Tactical Initiatives To Company

Strategy
A major US wireless telecommunications provider was facing strategic threats: stagnant growth; a
saturated market for wireless products and services; low customer loyalty, which resulted in high churn
numbers; and lack of differentiation in the quality of services it provided to its customer base due to its
aging technology infrastructure. The wireless telecom provider worked with Andrew Reise Consulting
to undertake an end-to-end continuous improvement project in which it:

›› Gathered customer feedback and assessed its technology maturity to find gaps. The
company gathered customer feedback, which allowed it to clarify its expectations for customer
engagement, and performed journey mapping to understand its customers’ typical behavior,
channel choices, and current areas of failure. It then performed an assessment of current

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13

technology against a customized maturity model. Once the company prioritized capability gaps,
Andrew Reise Consulting helped it break down its transformation initiatives into a road map,
consisting of 35 process and technology initiatives, spanning five years.

›› Established a governance structure to map its initiatives. The company solidified the
coordination of work plans, risk, issue management, and communications for the 350 full-time
resources involved in the project. Each initiative mapped to the overarching program objective to
boost average revenue per user, reduce churn, and increase the number of new customers. After
the first year, the company was tracking benefits realization at a macro level and the program was
on track to realize an ROI of approximately 225%.

Recommendations

Prove The Value By Starting Small

Improving customer service operations is often a daunting task. It requires transformation in
organization, technology, processes, and metrics. This is a valid long-term goal, but it is important to
start with something manageable. AD&D pros and customer service leaders should concentrate on
building initial proof points to validate their vision and engage the rest of the organization. Concentrate
on managing your scope by:

›› Ensuring a cohesive end-state vision. A vision for the future helps organizations speed up their
decision making by immediately ruling out options that cause them to diverge from their goals.
However, it is important not to over-focus on crafting the perfect vision. Aim for good enough and
recognize that this vision will need to change over time.

›› Building an iterative communication plan. A fully fleshed-out communication plan needs to

consider all of your stakeholders. But to begin, concentrate on building traction with a few key
peers and significant C-level sponsors. The rest can follow as you build a stronger case based on
real results.

›› Focusing on improving one cross-touchpoint customer journey first. It is impossible to map

every single customer journey. Instead of falling victim to endless analysis, identify one key cross-
touchpoint journey that both appeals to your customers and is a current pain point — for example,
supporting customers over the phone and web simultaneously. Use this as a proof point and
ensure that you can measure the results.

›› Identifying one key process to make cross-functional. Rather than try to transform your
entire change process at once, begin with one key process. Make it cross-functional by thinking
differently about who attends project meetings and who approves projects. Bring customer insight
to the table from whatever source you can — no matter how imperfect it may seem to begin with.

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14

›› Constantly reviewing progress and taking corrective action. Companies often operate strategic
planning processes that plot out three- to five-year visions that they refresh every year and routinely
review. In this way, you can easily identify projects that no longer deliver real value for either your
organization or its customers. Understand that the pace of change in consumer behavior is quick.
This means that something that you planned 12 months ago may now be a waste of time — and
don’t be afraid to kill off projects that have become irrelevant.

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Supplemental Material

Survey Methodology
The Forrester Analytics Consumer Technographics® North American Retail And Travel Customer Life
Cycle Survey, Q1 2017 (US) was fielded in March 2017. This online survey included 4,513 respondents
in the US between the ages of 18 and 88. For results based on a randomly chosen sample of this size,

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15

there is 95% confidence that the results have a statistical precision of plus or minus 1.5% of what they
would be if the entire population of US online adults (defined as those online weekly or more often) had
been surveyed.

Forrester weighted the data by age, gender, region, and income to demographically represent the US
online adult population. The survey sample size, when weighted, was 4,513. (Note: Weighted sample
sizes can be different from the actual number of respondents to account for individuals generally
underrepresented in online panels.) Ipsos fielded this survey on behalf of Forrester.

Companies Interviewed For This Report

Andrew Reise Consulting Dimension Data

Bluewolf (IBM) Verint Systems

Endnotes
1
Source: Forrester Analytics Global Business Technographics Priorities And Journey Survey, 2018.
2
When consumers switch from the web to phone, email, or chat, a company’s cost to serve them goes up dramatically.
Forrester built models to add up the unnecessary cost that a retailer might incur as a result of missed self-service
opportunities. Calculations showed an extra $22,567,967 in sales and service costs that could have been avoided
if the website had enabled users to complete their goals. See the Forrester report “Websites That Don’t Support
Customers Waste Millions.”
3
Source: Forrester Analytics Consumer Technographics North American Retail And Travel Customer Life Cycle Survey,
Q1 2017 (US).
4
Organizations must work toward providing seamless cross-touchpoint customer experiences. See the Forrester report
“The Unified Customer Experience Imperative.”
5
Targeted offers, rules-driven or based on predictive analytics, are a core ingredient of a customer service strategy of
cross-selling and upselling. See the Forrester report “2018 Customer Service Trends: How Operations Become Faster,
Cheaper — And Yet, More Human.”
6
Proactive chat success requires paying close attention to identifying the right customers at the right point in their
journey and then creating personalized, relevant engagement that shows customers that they are valued. Follow six
steps to do this right. See the Forrester report “The Six Key Elements Of Proactive Chat.”
7
See the Forrester report “Assess Customer Service Capabilities To Pinpoint Opportunities For Better Service.”
8
Customer service operations leaders are often the primary purchasers of technologies for customer service. Yet
marketing also purchases technologies such as social listening solutions, enterprise feedback management solutions,
and social media technologies that are of value to customer service. For more information on customer service
strategy, see the Forrester report “Channel Management: Core To Your Customer Service Strategy.”
9
See the Forrester report “The Forrester Wave™: Customer Service Solutions For Enterprise Organizations, Q2 2017.”
10
Source: Forrester Analytics Consumer Technographics North American Retail And Travel Customer Life Cycle Survey,
Q1 2017 (US).
11
Source: Forrester Analytics Consumer Technographics North American Retail And Travel Customer Life Cycle Survey,
Q1 2017 (US).

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16

Forrester has a best-practice framework for customer service that defines more than 150 best practices that drive
12

customer retention, customer loyalty, reduced cost, and increased revenue. See the Forrester report “Assess
Customer Service Capabilities To Pinpoint Opportunities For Better Service.”

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