new world of customer expectations

New World of Customer ExpectationsMichael Sirohi, Bluewolf Practice Director: Customer CareKen Osborn, Five9 Vice President of Marketing

The AgileEnterprise

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Jerry Gregoire, the CIO of Dell Computers,

said it best “Customer Service is the next

competitive battleground.” We have entered

the era of the customer. Today, providing

customers with outstanding customer service

is essential to building loyal customers and

a long lasting brand. Social media, and other

cutting edge communications, have a place

in any company’s customer strategy, but

the front-line of every company’s service

organization remains the telephone, and the

customer service agent. It also remains one of

the largest operational cost areas.

In this new battleground, companies need to

provide customer service that surpasses the

competition. They need to realign their culture

and technology in order to drive the maximum

value out of their investments (making

employees more productive, and extending

current capital expenditures to capture the

highest value).

In this paper we discuss:

The business benefits of migrating and

integrating your telephony and CRM

solutions in the cloud

How cloud technologies have enabled the

seamless integration between telephony

and CRM

Highlight key considerations when moving

your service operations to the cloud

Provide real-world examples of customers

achieving results

telephony & crm: a cloud-based match

More revenue, higher quality, greater

speed—all are watchwords in today’s

customer-facing contact center industry,

along with tougher service level agreements

and steadily increasing customer expectations.

Contact centers and other customer-facing

organizations are seeking answers to these

challenges from technology. Customer

Relationship Management (CRM) solutions

are providing more insight into customer

behavior and guidance for specific interactions.

Telephony solutions are allowing more

sophisticated routing and control of

customer interactions.

The old world of on-premise legacy

technologies —CRM, call distributors,

autodialers, Computer Telephony Integration

(CTI), Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems

and more—have grown far too complex and

unmanageable, making it impossible to achieve

the level of transparency and responsiveness

demanded by today’s customers.

Organizations, of every size and across every

industry, are reducing their dependence on

premise-based solutions such as Siebel’s

CRM and SFA solutions and shifting in huge

numbers to cloud-based counterparts such

as salesforce.com. They are also moving their

telephony functions out of premise-based,

licensed software solutions and costly private

data centers into SaaS solutions designed for

and living in the cloud.

Increased Importance in the Social EraCustomers today are expanding

their use of social networks as a

means of communication, and

self-service is emerging as a

primary mode for resolving issues.

This trend has only strengthened

the importance of a strong and

central CRM. The wide use of

online knowledge repositories and

customer portals have enabled

customers to resolve many low

level customer interactions

themselves. This means that the

support interactions managed

through telephony are now the

most complex since customers

have exhausted efforts at

resolving their issue themselves.

The AgileEnterprise


The advantages? Lower costs, improved agility,

greater reliability, and flexibility – or the ability

to scale rapidly. Each of these are critical

in an industry where shifting markets and

opportunities demand rapid change.

why the dependency between telephony and crm

The internal discussion happening in leading

organizations today is changing - from

measuring the “costs to cover” customers,

to a new discussion around the “cost of

servicing” customers. Improving customer

satisfaction and the quality of every interaction

is seen as a critical driver for growth. Cloud-

based technologies offer advantages and

opportunities toward developing more

sophisticated and responsive business

processes aimed at improving revenue

and customer satisfaction. But critical to

the success of these initiatives is the tight

integration between telephony and CRM.

CRM systems such as Salesforce are providing

a great deal of information and guidance to

make every customer interaction successful.

But this information is not fully realized,

if the person leveraging the information is

not capable of applying this guidance to

the customer interaction. IVR, VRU, and CTI

capabilities ensure that the customer is routed

to the correct queue or person to manage the

interaction. The right business process along

with telephony and CRM integration, ensures

the right employee, at the right time, equipped

with the right information, can make each

customer interaction a success.

the cloud difference: distinct business advantages

The financial and operational benefits of

moving to the cloud are extensive.

Hardware and software investments are

minimal if needed at all. No up-front

capital investment is required—for servers

or other equipment (telecom switches,

handsets)— and ongoing monthly expenses

are much easier to forecast.

Flexibility is built in. It’s much easier to

add or subtract seat licenses rather than

change the capacity of premise-based

hardware and software, so costs can

be kept to a minimum as business

needs fluctuate.

Speed of innovation. By eliminating

the delays associated with internally

managed systems, contact centers can

cost-effectively add functionality, boost

capacity, change processes, and tap new

or changed data sources precisely when

they need to.

Speed of deployment. Cloud-based CTI

lets a business deploy agents or even

establish new contact centers with

unprecedented speed.

Flexible agents, located anywhere. VOIP

technology means agents can be located

anywhere in the world—domestically,

offshore, or even in their homes creating

an “on-demand” workforce.


Enhancements and upgrades occur

seamlessly. New software releases

are simply pushed to the cloud-based

production environment with no

business disruption whatsoever—and

usually no involvement from an

enterprise’s own IT unit.

The result? Maximum agent productivity,

lower costs, and greater ability to seize

market opportunities.

integrating cti with your crm system

Another distinct advantage is the ease

of integrating cloud-based CTI and CRM

solutions. Links between the two platforms

are provided out of the gate (i.e. Salesforce) or

can usually be quickly and easily customized

and configured, strengthening both solutions.

With customer, call and contact information

flowing freely both directions, calls are more

easily routed to the right agent, while agents

can provide better-informed service with more

customer information at hand.

Agility as a key for success. The benefits of

making this move to the cloud are compelling,

but the target platform must be selected

with an eye toward ongoing agility. Even the

move itself must be done in lockstep with

changes in the business. This requires an agile

implementation approach designed to leverage

technology implementation best practices and

solve your business problems incrementally.

The result? Tangible results with minimal

project risk. By addressing business challenges

at the outcome of the project, cloud transition

teams can minimize time-to-value.

The following figure shows that cloud migration eventually results in better performance across the broader (and more significant) business metrics: customer satisfaction and cost of support.

MEASURABLE BENEFITS: Cloud migration results in direct benefits, customer satisfaction and cost of support.

ROI on Cloud Migration

ABERDEEN INSIGHTS: TECHNOLOGY


Graphical User Interface for Building IVR and ACD Scripts

Other

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Service

Support

Collect’s

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Sales

Service

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Speed of deployment is driven by the Five9 platform’s configuration interfaces. The Five9 visual call routing

designer enables call center administrators to design their call flows via an intuitive configuration tool. In

addition, out-of-the-box integrations to CRM platforms such as Salesforce accelerate the deployment process.

success story: national health insurance company

Rapid Deployment With Salesforce Integration Fuels Successful Launch Of New B2C Telesales Team The Challenge

When a large, nationwide health insurance

firm began preparing to launch a new product

line—one in which health insurance would be

marketed directly to consumers—it planned a

new telesales team to reach out to prospects.

Agents would:

Help consumers complete a lengthy

healthcare application via phone—a

process that could take as long as

two hours

Capture and retrieve detailed healthcare

information while also tracking information

about the call itself

Field support calls from healthcare plan

applicants (included Inbound agents—

blended agents, and eventually off-hours

agents handed off to outsourced contact

center service providers)

Data security is a key issue in the healthcare

space due to HIPAA and other regulatory

requirements. All solution components would

need to be configurable to manage data access

on a role and individual basis.

The Solution

Early on, the team identified Salesforce as a

key technology component, for managing both

lead and collected healthcare information.

Given the need for customized integration

among contact center technology, Salesforce,

and three other back-end applications, the

team engaged with Bluewolf to help select and

assemble all the components. Their marching

orders: move quickly.

The solution needed to combine call data

from IVR and other telephony applications

with lead information for Salesforce to create

customized prompting screens (known as

screen pops). These screens would guide

agents through the long, complex calls. All the

information collected would need to feed back

into Salesforce.

For the contact center functionality, the team

chose to implement the cloud-based, virtual

contact center solution from Five9, for a

number of reasons:

Cost of Ownership: Total cost of ownership,

including hardware, software, support and


Choosing a Cloud-based CTI Solution: Key Considerations Cloud-based CTI solutions can deliver on their promise of lower costs and increased agility

when they offer certain attributes. When deliberating solutions consider the importance of

some of these factors into your decision process:

Comprehensive Functionality/Flexibility: Consider the need for components that manage

both inbound and outbound calling. Blending agent workload and the ability to quickly scale

a team can be a key component.

Extensibility and APIs/Integration: Speed and ease of integration with a strong central CRM

is critical, but there are also many other applications that may benefit from integration.

Consider the overall platform, and the ability to extend and customize through open APIs.

Reporting and Visibility: Reporting and analytics are also critical. A solid platform will sport

a full library of pre-configured reports. Consider the ability to facilitate bringing CTI data into

external reporting or analysis applications, and the ability for your organization to optimize

performance through improved visibility.

other factors—would be lower than with

premise-based solutions.

Time to Market: Five9’s built-in, easily

configured SFDC integration would limit

complexity, enabling the solution to be

in place much sooner than premise-

based technology.

Ease of Integration: Other integrations

could be readily achieved with Five9’s open,

standards-based APIs.

Flexibility: Later, when outsourced

providers took on after-hours and overload

blended support, Five9’s agent-anywhere

capability and easily configured security

smoothed the way.

The combined Five9 and Bluewolf team also

identified an additional component deemed

ideal for generating and maintaining the long,

complex scripts needed by the agents: a

graphical scripting solution called Informavores

(since acquired by salesforce.com). This

tool would integrate with the contact

center technology.

The Results

As a result of the deployment, the insurance

firm was able to roll out its solution very

quickly, and establish a consistent, scalable

solution, thanks to dedicated integration work

by Bluewolf, and easy-to-implement Five9

contact center software.

Starting with a small telesales team, the

solution quickly ramped to more than 260

agents, with an additional 40-60 agents at

outsourced service providers.

Lead generation and conversion rate

both improved —boosting the return on

investment and helping the new product

line enjoy dramatic success.

Productivity & ease of use: The new solution

reduced the number of agent applications

from nine different systems down to a

single application and desktop.

And finally, this organization had been routing

any overflow calls during the day to their

outsourcers. Because of the increased agent

productivity, the company was able to manage

all call volumes during work hours, resulting in

significant monthly savings.


success story: media

Virtual Contact Center And Record-Breaking Blizzard Trigger At-Home Agent Model For News Industry Help Desk The Challenge

A centralized, inbound help desk team was

charged with assisting thousands of individuals

in the creation and use of key news assets.

They were struggling with their current system

due to key limitations, including:

Agents were unable to take advantage of

at-home agent coverage, due to limitations

of the premise-based call center platform.

The team wanted to boost customer

service by enhancing self-service (IVR)

functionality and enabling agents to

retrieve relevant information more quickly

and completely.

Though key information was managed by and

stored within Salesforce, linking the premise-

based call center technology with Salesforce

promised to be a long, difficult, and expensive

proposition. The company selected Bluewolf

to help them engage and transition to a

new platform.

The Solution

Bluewolf identified the cloud-based, virtual

contact center platform from Five9 as an

answer to both company challenges.

Five9’s powerful, pre-built, and highly

configurable integration with Salesforce meant

dramatically improved control over Salesforce-

held information, and much faster, more cost-

effective integration between Salesforce and

the cloud-based IVR solution.

Now, when a client calls the help desk,

the IVR-Salesforce integration—quickly

and easily customized by Bluewolf—

establishes or identifies a case, retrieves

relevant case information from the system,

and presents the agent with combined call

and case information.

The Results

Thanks to easy, less costly integration of the

Five9 and salesforce.com platforms—together

with Bluewolf’s expertise in working with

and customizing Salesforce-based solutions—

the help desk delivers faster, more

effective service.

Another key benefit—the ability for agents

to work remotely- surfaced just two days

after the solution was implemented when a

significant snowstorm shut down the help

desk’s home city. Agents could not get to the

call center, but because they had implemented

the cloud-based contact center software, they

could use the complete new solution from

their homes.

Lower costs: Costly premise-based

contact center software and the resources

to support it were both eliminated.

Flexibility: Ability for agents to work

anytime, anywhere. Since launch, the

customer has transitioned to a more

effective and less costly at-home staffing

model for off-hours work.

Most importantly, the organization has

gained all the advantages of cloud-based

contact center software—lower costs, regular,

effortless upgrades, and easier integration—

while still enjoying the benefits of customized

software where needed.


choosing the right partner

Companies looking to leverage cloud based

solutions to reap the benefits discussed in

this paper should understand that success

rests upon not only selecting the right

technology, but also right partner to help

transform your organization. Business process

expertise and technical competence play a

important role, but of equal importance is

the cultural fit with an organization. When

selecting a consulting partner be sure that

partner has a proven process to help you

establish your implementation requirements,

time-lines, and cost upfront. Also, look

for a proactive approach that identifies

behavioral and organizational factors that

may impact adoption. In the end, a true

partner will listen carefully and have the

expertise to build a solution that maps to your

unique organizational challenges and that

employees will actually use. Only then will your

organization have the foundation to provide the

level of customer service needed

to compete, and win, in this new customer

driven era.

about five9

Five9 is the leading global provider of cloud-

based call center software for Sales, Marketing

and Support. The award-winning Five9

Virtual Call Center and Predictive Dialer serve

customers of all sizes on five continents.

Customers profit from Five9’s reliable, robust

functionality that provides the best technology,

improves agent productivity, and delivers

business flexibility.

about bluewolf

We make enterprises agile, and unite IT and the

business under one mission - Innovation. As

a global agile consultancy, Bluewolf provides

services across the customer life cycle, IT

resourcing, managed services and training.

Trusted by businesses across diverse industries,

Bluewolf is translating today’s unique

business environment into opportunities for

growth. With Bluewolf, businesses are able to

deliver results that benefit the customer, the

workforce, and the bottom line.