Enabling Contact Centres to help manage customer churn in the telecoms industry

 

 

The telecoms sector is one of the most highly competitive industries, with one third of its customers churning every year. So how can service providers differentiate themselves from the competition and minimise the impact of churn on the bottom line?

 

Here, Ofer Yourvexel, Senior Vice President of International Sales for unified customer service desktop provider, Jacada, explains how major organisations such as Vodafone UK are meeting challenges head on through an integrated desktop approach that ensures consistent high-quality customer service.

 

 

Customer churn is one of the greatest challenges for any organisation, and none more so than the telecoms industry. The mobile phones market reached saturation point some time ago and the plethora of pricing options, different service plans and new phone models available causes customers to swap suppliers on a regular basis.

 

The old adage that ‘service sells’ has never been more applicable and good customer service can help telecoms providers hold on to their customers and provide a value added service. Take, for example, the recent news that UK cable giant NTL is acquiring Virgin Mobile. The Virgin name was favoured for the new company as it offered instant consumer brand appeal, but more importantly because of its renowned excellent customer service. So how can other service providers meet the growing challenge of Virgin’s customer service offering? Answer? Through enhancing their own customer service.

 

High Quality Customer Service

Traditionally contact centres have often been referred to as ‘cost centres’ and a necessary business expense, however, if used correctly they can have a significant impact on customer retention. They can add real market value and prove to be a successful business tool.

The key to keeping customers happy and ensuring that they stay with your company, is to provide them with the information they need, when they need it. This is often easier said than done. Agents frequently have to access many different databases to find all of the relevant information in order to satisfy a customer enquiry. The answer lies in an integrated desktop, which enables agents to access all the information they need through a single screen, including product details and availability as well as customer histories. This means that they do not need to separately navigate the many silos of data that may already exist within your business – freeing up agents’ time to provide truly personalised service.

 

Putting theory into practise – Vodafone UK

Vodafone UK, a member of the world’s largest cellular community, faces the problem of customer churn every day and like most service providers, it has a department that is dedicated to retaining customers. The Vodafone customer retention department implemented a unified desktop in order to simplify the processes for its agents. Through the non-invasive integration of their systems and processes, Vodafone’s agents have been able to reduce call time, while still providing high levels of quality customer service– especially in terms of customer ‘saves’. The result is that they can now complete more calls in the space of a day, which translates directly into more customer ‘saves’.

 

Jacada offers a unified desktop to enable agents to access all the information needed through a single screen, including product details and availability, as well as customer histories. Using its unified desktop, Vodafone enabled its agents to navigate the many separate silos of data that existed within the business. The agents only needed to learn how to use one simple interface, which provides the key to the whole call-handling process.

 

By employing the Jacada Fusion process optimisation solution, Vodafone has cut the time of a successful retention call in half, and completely eliminated its call wrap-up process. Vodafone agents are better informed and now have the expertise and knowledge to deliver product, tariff, usage and industry information efficiently.

 

Don’t forget agents churn too!

In addition to customer churn, agent retention is also a great obstacle to overcome for the telecoms industry. Research from global market research firm, Gartner, has shown that anything from wages to working environment can be responsible for staff turnover and with staff churn rates reaching a high of 60 per cent, and with the contact centre industry set to expand to over 37,000 by the end of the year, this churn figure will undoubtedly rise. The important thing to remember is that agent and customer churn happens and will continue to do so, especially in today’s competitive market. However, by optimising agent processes and giving staff the right equipment to do their jobs well, businesses can see churn levels – for both agents and customers – drop.

 

 

 

The telecoms sector is one of the most highly competitive industries, with one third of its customers churning every year. So how can service providers differentiate themselves from the competition and minimise the impact of churn on the bottom line?

 

Here, Ofer Yourvexel, Senior Vice President of International Sales for unified customer service desktop provider, Jacada, explains how major organisations such as Vodafone UK are meeting challenges head on through an integrated desktop approach that ensures consistent high-quality customer service.

 

Customer churn is one of the greatest challenges for any organisation, and none more so than the telecoms industry. The mobile phones market reached saturation point some time ago and the plethora of pricing options, different service plans and new phone models available causes customers to swap suppliers on a regular basis.

 

The old adage that ‘service sells’ has never been more applicable and good customer service can help telecoms providers hold on to their customers and provide a value added service. Take, for example, the recent news that UK cable giant NTL is acquiring Virgin Mobile. The Virgin name was favoured for the new company as it offered instant consumer brand appeal, but more importantly because of its renowned excellent customer service. So how can other service providers meet the growing challenge of Virgin’s customer service offering? Answer? Through enhancing their own customer service.

 

High Quality Customer Service

Traditionally contact centres have often been referred to as ‘cost centres’ and a necessary business expense, however, if used correctly they can have a significant impact on customer retention. They can add real market value and prove to be a successful business tool.

The key to keeping customers happy and ensuring that they stay with your company, is to provide them with the information they need, when they need it. This is often easier said than done. Agents frequently have to access many different databases to find all of the relevant information in order to satisfy a customer enquiry. The answer lies in an integrated desktop, which enables agents to access all the information they need through a single screen, including product details and availability as well as customer histories. This means that they do not need to separately navigate the many silos of data that may already exist within your business – freeing up agents’ time to provide truly personalised service.

 

Putting theory into practise – Vodafone UK

Vodafone UK, a member of the world’s largest cellular community, faces the problem of customer churn every day and like most service providers, it has a department that is dedicated to retaining customers. The Vodafone customer retention department implemented a unified desktop in order to simplify the processes for its agents. Through the non-invasive integration of their systems and processes, Vodafone’s agents have been able to reduce call time, while still providing high levels of quality customer service– especially in terms of customer ‘saves’. The result is that they can now complete more calls in the space of a day, which translates directly into more customer ‘saves’.

 

Jacada offers a unified desktop to enable agents to access all the information needed through a single screen, including product details and availability, as well as customer histories. Using its unified desktop, Vodafone enabled its agents to navigate the many separate silos of data that existed within the business. The agents only needed to learn how to use one simple interface, which provides the key to the whole call-handling process.

 

By employing the Jacada Fusion process optimisation solution, Vodafone has cut the time of a successful retention call in half, and completely eliminated its call wrap-up process. Vodafone agents are better informed and now have the expertise and knowledge to deliver product, tariff, usage and industry information efficiently.

 

Don’t forget agents churn too!

In addition to customer churn, agent retention is also a great obstacle to overcome for the telecoms industry. Research from global market research firm, Gartner, has shown that anything from wages to working environment can be responsible for staff turnover and with staff churn rates reaching a high of 60 per cent, and with the contact centre industry set to expand to over 37,000 by the end of the year, this churn figure will undoubtedly rise. The important thing to remember is that agent and customer churn happens and will continue to do so, especially in today’s competitive market. However, by optimising agent processes and giving staff the right equipment to do their jobs well, businesses can see churn levels – for both agents and customers – drop.

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