Future of the Contact Centre

VIEW FROM THE

CHAIRMartin Hill-Wilson

Founder, Brainfood Consulting

Published by

FUTURE OF THECONTACT CENTRE22 FEBRUARY 2018VICTORIA PARK PLAZA I LONDON

Future of theContact Centre

VIEW FORM THE CHAIR1

FUTURE OF THE CONTACT CENTRE CONFERENCE 2018

It was a good crowd – an industry in genuinetransformation – a busy agenda to mirror the extent ofchange. So the signs pointed to a great event whichindeed it turned out to be.

We began with an outside-in view from BT’s bi-annual consumer researchpresented of course by the inimitable Nicola Millard. As expected, customers valuelow effort engagement. They want self service when things are simple, liveassistance when things get complicated and proactive service when things can beanticipated. Chatbots with well signposted escalation are also appreciated as isintelligent routing when it achieves the best match between need and solution.

As usual, Nicola provided a great scene setter.

So are brands rising to the occasion? We heard some great examples. First up toshow us something new was the Daily Mail Group (DMG) and the Limitless offeringwhich leverages the power of crowd sourcing.

Suzi Caesar from DMG framed the presentation in terms of the following targetsshe had set herself. Reduce annual cost to service by 30%. Double customersatisfaction and improve response times. Be available where many customersspend time (social). Be able to meet unpredictable demand with a ‘pay as you go’model.

These were met with the Limitless solution which essentially farms out suitableinbound demand to a team of recruited and trained customer volunteers who arerewarded for their efforts. It’s proved a great success and a model others shouldcertainly be looking at. 30% of contacts are now handled by the Help Advisers.Average response time is now just five minutes. Customer satisfaction is 95%+and cost to service is reduced by 50%.

I’ve been a fan of community based service ever since the early days of socialcustomer service. It’s nice to see the proposition reinvented and working well.

Another inspiring story was told by Nicholas J.S. Brice who was the Amex Stadium‘Team Brighton’ Lead. It’s a great story of turning a 1960’s style football experienceinto something that competes with the very best live experience anywhere. The

Martin Hill-WilsonFounder, Brainfood Consulting

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number of awards that the stadium and staffhave picked up since the transformation istestament to that.

If you check out Nick’s CV on Linkedin, it’s noco-incidence that he has an awesomebackground in training, facilitation and theatredirecting. It’s a potent and evidently effectiveblend. Clearly the impact on Brighton and Hoveas a team is working. They recentlycontributed to a very miserable week forArsenal by beating them with a performancefull of the same self belief Nick and the teamcultivated during the transformation.

Innovation comes in all sorts of shapes andsizes.

I was particularly struck by Nick Cockerill fromSky Gaming who was up for a total reinventionof the role and function of a contact centrewhich as he quite rightly noted is now a 40year model that needs a refresh!

His thinking embraces the power of AI. Heknows that his advisors generate a few milliondata points each year from customerconversations that never surface as insightfrom traditional data warehouse analytics.

In Nick’s future world, advisors become“conversation architects”, increasing the sumtotal of IQ the team holds about customers.This in turn feeds product teams with insightwhich in Sky Gaming world means the coders.So why not mash those teams together sothey can work in a highly agile way? An AIdriven, continuous loop that reinvents contactcentre value.

I totally agree. In my world that’s called a customer hub. Delighted someoneelse has spotted a new reason for teams to work beyond silos.

Another presentation that rated highly in original thinking was JamesSandberg’s insights into how Marketing and Service ought to collaborate.Again this is home turf for me and another example of why customer hubsare relevant. However James brings a wealth of fresh thinking to theopportunity for how things should be working – way beyond the trite headlinethat ‘Service Is The New Marketing’.

Quite rightly, he talks about the need for creating a common language,something needed given the different cultures in each tribe. Of course datasharing gets a mention and James illustrated how this can be cost effectivelyenabled using common dashboards such as Qlik or Klipfolio. Jamesconcluded with a vision for how both teams could collaborate on a ‘totalcustomer experience’. Great stuff. Customer Devoted is well worth a visit.

What else to round out this report?

A short shoutout to Sparkcentral for reminding everyone that the next bigthing to hit omni-channel is going to be messaging.

Another one from Tao Leadership who make things happen (change mgt) bytapping into the insights of relevant internal influencers and then mining theirinsights to drive sprint style behavioural changes. They seem in tune with thewatercourse way if you know your Allan Watts.

So there were plenty of examples of how our industry is changing. Somepursued with a deep creative energy. It bodes well for our changing industry.

And as a final note, more of a cautionary tale in fact, Portland TV had this toreport. Do not push your customer too fast into unfamiliar ways of engaging.Despite the apparently cheaper ways that digital and self service offer toorganisations, they might damage your performance in debt collection,lifetime value, cross and up sell opportunities. That’s what they discoveredfrom listening and sticking with what their customers wanted. For them, theROI more than justified the higher costs.

Over and out.

VIEW FORM THE CHAIR

FUTURE OF THE CONTACT CENTRE CONFERENCE 2018

Future of the Contact Centre

The Team

Steve HurstEditorial Directorsteve.hurst@ebm.media01932 506 304

David CraikEditordavid.craik@ebm.media01932 506 300

EDITORIAL

Katie DonaldsonMarketing Managerkatie.donaldson@ebm.media01932 506 302

Hannah MuleaMarketing Executivehannah.mulea@ebm.media01932 302 112

MARKETING

James CotteeSponsorship Sales Managerjames.cottee@ebm.media01932 506 309

Dominic StoneSponsorship Salesdominic.stone@ebm.media01932 506 303

Dale AyliffeSponsorship Salesdale.ayliffe@ebm.media01932 302 110

Kimberley BishopSponsorship Saleskim.bishop@ebm.media01932 506 308

Dan MoranSponsorship Salesdan.moran@ebm.media01932 506 303

SPONSORSHIP

Dan SkinnerDelegate Salesdan.skinner@ebm.media01932 506 307

Jamie RossDelegate SalesJamie.ross@ebm.media01932 506 306

MEMBERSHIP

Sabrina ClarkeFinance Managerfinance@ebm.media01932 500 103

Jenna PollardAccounts Executiveaccounts@ebm.media01932 428 542

FINANCE

Nick Rustnick.rust@ebm.media01932 506 301

MANAGING DIRECTOR

VIEW FROM THE CHAIR

Martin Hill-Wilson, Founder, Brainfood Consulting

FUTURE OF THECONTACT CENTRE22 FEBRUARY 2018VICTORIA PARK PLAZA I LONDON