Contact Center Solutions Q&A With SpeechCycle's Zor Gorelov

Not too many years ago the only channels customers could interact with companies were landlines, in-person, postal mail and for businesses, PSTN fax.

Communications service providers, or service providers, had it relatively simple; they competed against only two or three firms and in the same channel; not too long before that there was just “the phone company”.

This ecosystem has now radically changed with new technologies opening up new channels and methods of communicating in them and with it so has customers’ behavior. While organizations tried to predict which ones customers preferred they soon gave up on that notion because there was no way of doing so. At the same time outfits sought to manage the costs of customer interactions: balancing the need to retain customers that they depend on with making profits from these engagements.

SpeechCycle is at the gateway on these issues. It automates customer self-service, both inbound and outbound, and takes measurable cost out of contact center operation. Its solution set aims to provide high quality customer-retaining experiences while lowering expenses.

TMCnet recently interviewed SpeechCycle (News - Alert) ceo Zor Gorelov about the changing customer interaction ecosystem especially for communications service providers that face the challenges of retaining existing and drawing in new subscribers in the face of competition from multiple competitors: and channels.

Here is our exchange:

TMCnet: Customers are now communicating on any device via any channel from anywhere. Describe this new anywhere customer and how it differs from the older customer model

ZG: During the past few years, we have seen a shift in customer behaviors that dramatically impacts the way companies should think about interacting with and servicing their customers. Because of the proliferation of mobile devices, consumers have become accustomed to being in control of when, where and how they communicate. Today’s consumers demand connectivity and continuity in every place, on any device and relationship they have. The idea of connectivity and continuity extends to their perceptions and expectations of customer service.

The growing number of always connected or anywhere customers equipped with smartphones often prefers non-voice channels of communication. Users are downloading and launching a variety of apps for everyday services such as buying theater tickets or making reservations at a restaurant. This same paradigm shift is driving a change in the way companies must service their customers. Instead of navigating through a complex phone menu or waiting on hold for an agent, customers expect a more immediate and intuitive customer care experience that seamlessly blends rich self-service on their mobile device with agent-assisted service. 

TMCnet: What impact is this new anywhere customer having on service providers' customer retention and attraction programs? What are the issues faced by them in meeting their needs and keeping them loyal? For example are these new anywhere customers not hesitating to use social media to discuss their experiences that can affect sales both positive as well as negative?

ZG: Customer retention remains a key imperative for service providers. An analyst report reveals that 58 percent of consumers identified outstanding service as the number one reason they would recommend a company to someone else. The report also noted that as high as 87 percent of customers discontinued business with a company after a negative customer experience. 

In the past, due to the limited number of communication options, companies could more easily influence customers and predict their actions. In today’s world, the proliferation of communication devices and constant connectivity provided by social networks has birthed a new era of empowered customers and redefined customer care.

Companies who are experiencing this shift in customer behavior must be proactive. Service providers should respond by adapting to the anywhere customers by enabling them to get what they need, when they need it. Instead of treating customers like a stranger each time they make contact, companies need to view each contact as a continuation and an opportunity to “enrich” the customer relationship. Anywhere customers who are empowered with an exceptional customer experience that flows smoothly across contact channels will naturally help drive loyalty and attract new customers within their network of influence. As a result, companies would need to worry less about getting “flamed” in a blog, social network or online forum; instead they would have the opportunity to turn online conversations into real product and company marketing opportunities.

TMCnet: What are the best practices that SpeechCycle recommends in retaining and attracting these anywhere customers?

ZG: In our view, best practices for attracting and retaining anywhere customers should focus around four key areas. These best practices should form the basis for ongoing customer care initiatives:

* Focus on seamless integration of self and agent assisted service to improve customer experience. Service providers need to optimize the customer service experience from end-to-end and ensure that every contact is fast, intuitive and personalized

* Use natural language and engage customers in a dialogue. With the ubiquity of online search engines that allow natural language queries, there is no longer a need to put customers through complex phone menus. Service providers need to provide their customers with the same natural language interface for accessing the services within the enterprise

* Leverage existing IT systems. Internal systems such as CRM (customer relationship management), BPM (business process management) and KM (knowledge management) solutions have been developed to help manage and improve relationships with customers; this rich source of customer data needs to be extended and adapted to support the anywhere customer

* Enable the cross-channel experience. Today’s anywhere customers aren’t just using the phone for service issues; more and more they are choosing non-voice channels such as those available on the smartphone. These channels need to be synchronized or woven together into a continuous customer care fabric

Companies should re-evaluate their investments aimed at improving specific customer care silos. Instead, they need to look more broadly and invest smartly in solutions that will  “interaction enable” their existing enterprise CRM, BPM and KM systems through a common communications hub that is multi-channel ready and allows a write-once deploy-anywhere deployment model. The adoption of this approach will serve as the foundation for implementing additional best practices for attracting and retaining anywhere customers.

TMCnet: What new solutions have SpeechCycle recently devised and have in the pipeline to enable firms to keep in these customers and draw in others?

ZG: At SpeechCycle, our focus is on something we call “Customer Relationship Enrichment.” Our goal is to provide our customers with the tools and capabilities they need to build lasting and profitable relationships with their customers.

We have developed a new category of customer interaction management solutions called Rich Phone (News - Alert) Applications (RPAs) that have helped our customers automate many complex phone interactions that typically required live agents. RPAs are unique in that they orchestrate and extend enterprise systems to the end customer through a natural language interface that is accessible over multiple channels, including next generation smartphones. RPAs are driven by the same enterprise systems that contain the customer data and best practices that live agents use when they handle customer care inquiries.

Most recently, we announced the general availability of RPA Express, a strategic contact center infrastructure component designed to simplify the creation, delivery and maintenance of phone and smartphone RPAs. It is the same platform that today powers all our LevelOne Agents, which have already processed hundreds of millions of customer interactions in our on-demand environment.