Engage Focus Group Supplement Thursday 26 September Hilton London Heathrow EngageFocusGroups.com #EngageCustomer
FOCUS GROUPS 2019
2 The Team EDITORIAL Steve Hurst Editorial Director steve.hurst@ebm.media 01932 506 304 Elizabeth Akass Editor lizzie.akass@ebm.media 01932 302 113
MARKETING Katie Donaldson Marketing Manager katie.donaldson@ebm.media 01932 506 302 Hannah Mulea Event Success Manager hannah.mulea@ebm.media 01932 302 111 Sophie Smith Marketing Executive sophie.smith@ebm.media 01932 302 112
MEMBERSHIP Jamie Ross Delegate Sales jamie.ross@ebm.media 01932 506 306 Michael Duckham Delegate Sales mike.duckham@ebm.media 01932 506 307
SPONSORSHIP Dominic Stone Sponsorship Sales dominic.stone@ebm.media 01932 506 303
Welcome On Thursday 26th September, the 2019 Engage Focus Groups took place at the Hilton Hotel in London. These focus groups create a space for senior, head of, and director-level personnel within the customer and employee engagement spaces from a wide variety of brands to share ideas and knowledge, ask questions from their professional peers, and raise points for discussion. The event had five main themes running throughout: CX Strategies for the Customer Journey, Evolution of CX Service Design, Trust and the Contact Centre, Future of the Contact Centre, and Flexible Homeworking. A panel discussion also took place for the topic moderators to engage with each other and discuss questions raised by both delegates and the panel moderator.
CX Strategies for the Customer Journey This stream was moderated by Martin HillWilson, Founder of Brainfood Consulting, and discussed: ‘How to Design and Test New Contact Strategies: Maintain Flawless CX While Adding Channels’. Martin began by raising the point that the contact centre is the crossroad of all organisational activity, and explained the different customer contact routes companies can take. This includes: voice (assisted service), which Martin notes was going out of fashion but is now returning in an automated form, text (self-service), and video (proactive service).
enough choice. In addition, he said that AI should only be introduced to customer service when the service journeys have been perfected and simplified, with well-engineered solutions and solid back-end management behind them.
Evolution of CX Service Design Moderated by Nick Sellers, Senior Director of Strategy and Marketing at Sykes Enterprises Inc, this stream discussed: ‘Future CX Service Journeys will be Personalised, Planned, and Productive’. Nick stated that customers are always looking for an outcome, and that they embark on journeys with an end in mind. Similarly to the first stream, the need for simplicity and customers’ high expectations for ease and efficiency were discussed. Although in this session, Nick expanded the point to explain that a common issue in customers’ negative experiences is that most companies create their digital experiences with the business’ objectives in mind, but not necessarily how the customers will experience it.
Dale Ayliffe Sponsorship Sales dale.ayliffe@ebm.media 01932 302 110
Dan Moran Sponsorship Sales dan.moran@ebm.media 01932 506 303 Pascal Van Huffel
Martin highlighted that emotion is the most significant driver of brand loyalty for customers, and raised the issue of ‘liquid expectations’: the very high expectations customers now have for ease and efficiency in purchasing and delivery time across the board, due to their experiences with large brands who can afford to follow through on their ever-increasing promises.
Sponsorship Sales pascal.vanhuffel@ebm.media 01932 506 308
FINANCE Sabrina Clarke Finance Manager finance@ebm.media 01932 500 103 Jenna Pollard Accounts Executive accounts@ebm.media 01932 428 542
MANAGING DIRECTOR Nick Rust nick.rust@ebm.media 01932 506 301
To navigate this, he emphasised the importance for brands to make a great effort to ensure the customer experience is as simple and easy as possible, stating that simplicity is absolutely a universal requirement in customer experience. This is particularly significant due to the negative consequences of causing cognitive overload in customers through a complicated, difficult buying experience, which damages trust and deters customers from returning. This links to another key point made, in that every interaction a customer has with a brand either increases or decreases their brand loyalty. However, Martin also said that it is imperative for brands to strike the right balance when striving for simplicity in still providing customers
The role of marketing in creating and raising customer expectations was another hot topic in this stream. It was agreed that this can be both beneficial when the customers’ experiences are positive, but can be detrimental to brand trust and loyalty when reality falls short of what’s been promised. Furthermore, Nick said that customers expect authenticity and honesty from brands, and companies need to understand who their customers are in order to appropriately market to them. This linked to another point raised around personalisation, in that in its increasingly popular usage by brands, it is imperative to not cross the line in becoming invasive in the way customer are advertised to, and to never use their data carelessly, as this also has the potential to damage trust.
Trust and the Contact Centre Continuing with the theme of trust, Tony Smith, Sales Director EMEA of Strategic Accounts at PCI Pal, moderated the third stream, discussing: ‘UK Consumers Won’t Spend with Brands they Don’t Trust’. Tony opened the discussion with some
FOCUS GROUPS 2019
interesting statistics, including the fact that 38% of the UK population, and 44% of the US population have been affected by security breach in their lifetime, and that 56% of the UK and 42% of the US dislike sharing credit card details verbally over the phone due to security worries. Additionally, 41% of Britons stop spending with a brand forever after a security breach, almost double of their US counterparts who sit at 21% making this same permanent decision. Tony stated that trust is now at the forefront of customer decisions. This is even to the extent that customers feel more comfortable sharing their data with small local stores than large multinational companies. This was reiterated by the room due to the accountability of face-to-face experiences, and the belief that small stores are less likely to be targeted by hackers. Hacking continued to be a focal point of this stream, with Tony mentioning that 41% of consumers want businesses to admit responsibility in the event of a hack, and to be honest and transparent in their communication around security breaches, addressing the customers’ fears to try and redeem their trust.
Future of the Contact Centre This stream was moderated by Andrew Hall, UK evangelist, Odigo UK, discussing: ‘Achieving and Exceeding the Customer Experience Expectations of the Uber, Monzo, Deliveroo Generation’. A key point raised in this talk was that the customer journeys should be the first priority, and the metrics will follow. He emphasised that a customer-centric approach is best, and discouraged brands from wholly focusing on financial gain. Andrew led the conversation around the importance of brands empowering and engaging their employees in contact centres by giving more freedom in the way they communicate with customers. The discussion then moved to gamification and rewards schemes for certain accomplishments and meeting targets, and how it generally can be positive to implement for teams to work collectively towards a goal if the rewards are motivating enough, but on an individual basis it can risk demoralising employees over time or making them feel like their efforts are reduced to numbers. It was noted that if a reward or bonus is in place for certain achievements it must be consistent, as taking a pre-existing reward away can be incredibly demotivating. Moreover, Andrew said that looking forward, all companies have different goals regarding contact centres. Some aim to remove their contact centres over time, and some want more customer journeys to be digitised, increasingly through AI, and to only keep contact centres for more complex queries, particularly when human contact and empathy are needed.
3
Flexible Homeworking Moderated by Mark Walton, CEO of Sensée, this stream discussed: ‘Benefits for Businesses, Customers and Society of Flexible Working’. Mark introduced how his company has successfully utilised flexible working from home to benefit the business in maximising productivity and efficiency, and empowering employees with autonomy over their schedules. He also said that flexible homeworking allows for a more diverse workforce, with a significant proportion of Sensée’s employees being disabled or new parents returning to work on a part-time basis, with training delivered virtually. Mark explained that companies need to evolve and trust employees more with autonomy over their working hours and in working from home, and pushed the importance of not getting stuck in traditional ways. Mark also recommended brands monitor the customer feedback they receive, as a significant number tend to respond positively to their contact working from home due to reduced background noise and increased focus on the conversation. Another interesting point raised was that investing in customer satisfaction can mean revenue decreases slightly, but it is worth it for loyal, positive customer relationships. He does note that this is not a one size fits all structure for companies to follow, but hiring a workforce specifically looking for flexible homeworking can be a contributing factor to succeeding in this effort.
Panel Discussion The panel discussion, moderated by Gerry Brown, Chief Customer Rescue Officer at The Customer Lifeguard, created a space for all the topic moderators to openly discuss and share ideas on the main points raised from the day, and answer questions from the audience. It was concluded across the board that the most crucial takeaways from the day were the importance of simplifying customer journeys, breaking down silos where possible to build employee engagement, that building trust is imperative in improving customer relationships, and the importance of finding an appropriate balance between AI and human interaction in the contact centre moving forward. By Lizzie Akass, Editor
EngageFocusGroups.com @EngageCustomer #EngageConferences EngageCustomer.com Engage Focus Groups is organised by Engage Business Media Ltd Join EngageCustomer.com (free membership) and receive Latest News and Features, Weekly Newsletter, Invitations to Directors Forums, Conferences, Summits, Webinars, Focus Groups and more. Nicholson House • 41 Thames Street • Weybridge • Surrey • KT13 8JG Company Registration No. 8636460
Say good dbye to bad CX …missed connections s …late night escalatio ons …low NPS …unhappy customers
Say hello o to Ma Map ap, test & monit m or your om mnichannel CX system The eD De Definitiv fi finitiv e Guide to
DevOps vO for Customer Ex Experienc ence Delive vering ng gQ Quality y with Speed p
To T o learn more, download The Definitive Guide to DevOps for fo C CX X info.cyarra. a com/engage
Customer Smiles. Delivered at Scale.
cyara.com hello@cyara.com T +44 0203 786 5070
5 Merchant Square Paddington London, W2 1AY AY Y,, UK
FOCUS GROUPS 2019
CX Strategies for the Customer Journey
How to Design and Test New Contact Strategies: Maintain Flawless CX While Adding Channels
Moderator: Martin Hill-Wilson, Customer Service, CX and AI engagement strategist The world of customer service becomes more complex by the year. There are more channels than ever. Just as we settle into the view that asynchronous text is the way forward, voice makes a comeback in the form of conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI). But adding new services and channels brings many challenges. You must ensure you offer customers sufficient value – enough to persuade them to change habits. As you test, tweak, and optimise new services, you also need to satisfy any internal concerns that the quality of customer experience is being compromised as the new services are being introduced. In this session, you will learn: •
Challenges service leaders face when adding new channels
•
Redefining customer service
•
Designing and testing new contact strategies
•
The role of DevOps in software development.
Martin Hill-Wilson is a customer service, CX and AI engagement strategist. He is a frequent keynote speaker, author and former CEO of the Merchants Group, one of the first contact centre outsourcing and consulting brands. Current topics include omnichannel service design, emotional management for contact centres, and agile service innovation in an age of disruptive brands.
5
FOCUS GROUPS 2019
2
How to Design and Test New Contact Strategies: Maintain Flawless CX While Adding Channels Moderator: Martin Hill-Wilson, Customer Service, CX and AI Strategist The world of customer experience becomes more complex by the year. There are more channels than ever. Just as we settle into the view that asynchronous text is the way forward, voice makes a comeback in the form of conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI). But innovating and adding new services and channels brings many challenges. You must ensure you offer customers sufficient value—enough to persuade them to change habits. As you test, tweak, and optimise new services, you also need to satisfy any internal concerns that the quality of customer experience is being compromised as the new services are being introduced. We will explore the following themes: • Challenges service leaders face when adding new channels • Redefining customer service • Designing and testing new contact strategies
Say Goodbye to Business as Usual Technology continues to evolve at an ever-increasing pace. Never before has technology—the architectures, networks, operating systems, applications, processes and even the people designing, developing, operating or using it—been such a driving force. Digital transformation is no longer a buzzword but a reality, and the race to deliver a perfect customer experience the first time has never been more important. Organisations need to recognise this new norm of constant change and resource themselves around it, then find ways to industrialise—standardising, scaling, and reducing risk at the same time.
Adding Channels, Adding Complexity We’ve moved from single channel communication (typically voice), via multichannel (typically voice, email, fax, video, SMS etc), to omnichannel, which
FOCUS GROUPS 2019
7
incorporates even more channels (voice, email, fax, video, SMS and web applications— webchat, chatbot etc) and expects seamless handoff between each. There is an increasingly wide array of ways companies can engage with customers, but this adds complexity, which can be an issue for customer experience. In this setting, every company needs to be ready for their customers’ preferred way of making contact.
Digital Transformation and Customer Contact Channels In the session, key decision-makers from some of the UK’s leading institutions highlighted the impact digital transformation and more channels is having on their efforts to reach customers. A globally recognised bank told us they had tried extending their opening hours to 10pm so that customers with 9-5 jobs, who did not want to use their mobile devices for banking, could still go to a branch for an in-person experience. Another executive said they no longer used email as a means of communication, instead looking to social media and mobile messaging applications to access and send information instantaneously. We also heard that the more traditional methods of updating customers, physical mail and email, were not effective for their younger customers; this demographic would typically respond to an ad on Facebook instead. Meanwhile, the ‘middle aged’ demographic tended to respond to ads in magazines and leaflets. Attendees from traditional services like banking, whilst having an extensive customer base across many banking sectors, talked about the importance of facilitating contact and providing the same level of customer experience to all customers, regardless of how they engaged. They relayed that many of their customers don’t engage with mobile devices or any other form of digital technology to manage their banking needs. This applies typically to the older generation, who prefer to visit a bank
or make contact by telephone. At the other end of the spectrum, another executive said social media alerts were the most effective way to promote special deals to their audience.
Looking to Omnichannel The question is not about what other channels to invest in, but how organisations across all verticals globally can continue to support their ever-growing and diverse customer range. There is no perfect answer of course, but every effort should be made to be ready for any customer, whenever and however they choose to make contact. Track changing customer behaviours, then use that data to develop personas, from very conservative to very progressive, for example. Companies can sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that adding a new contact channel means they now have an omnichannel strategy. In reality, they’ve just added a new piece of kit. And there is not one ‘killer’ contact channel; it’s important to understand the relative strengths and weaknesses of each channel and strike a balance. Operations and networks also need to offer stability, and interaction channels must be responsive. The role of customer experience professionals is to orchestrate contact channels so that they maximise the benefit for the task at the lowest possible cost.
Balancing Safety, Low Risk, and Innovation As companies continue to innovate their customer experience, it’s essential that they don’t expose their customers to issues. Assure your customer journeys from end to end— whether discovering and documenting your CX in the design phase, ensuring systems perform under stress before roll-out, or monitoring to find issues in production. All media channels and choices—from voice to chatbots—need to be included. And these channels will continue to be as important as any new interaction channels that are introduced. You need to ensure that the experience offered on every channel works as you intend, and delivers the best customer experience possible.
FOCUS GROUPS 2019
Evolution of CX Service Design
Future CX Service Journeys will be Personalised, Planned and Productive
Moderator: Nick Sellers, Senior Director, Strategy and Marketing, Sykes Enterprises, Inc Good Customer Experience (CX) is a key objective for many businesses operating in competitive markets. It differentiates where product and service innovation doesn’t. But as companies move beyond the spotlight and put CX under the microscope, the many moving parts and contributors highlight how complicated it can be to improve the way the business and customers interact. In this session, we’ll look at the journey brands have taken so far and we’ll also be looking forward to how technology and data science is changing the way we think about CX and the CX journeys of the future.
Nick Sellers is a passionate customer experience advocate and has championed the CX cause in many projects across Europe and North America. As Senior Director, Strategy and Marketing, Nick tracks changing attitudes to CX and how technologies are enabling businesses to do better for their customers and for all stakeholders.
9
www.pcipal.com
FOCUS GROUPS 2019
Trust and the Contact Centre
UK Consumers Won’t Spend with Brands they Don’t Trust
Moderator: Tony Smith, Sales Director, EMEA – Strategic Accounts, PCI Pal Data security is something that is on everyone’s radar, especially in complex contact centre environments. Join this session to hear consumer research conducted by our team at PCI Pal on how consumers are putting their money where their trust is. From surveys carried out in both the UK and US into consumer trust and spending habits, we will talk about why contact centres need to be taking steps to provide clearer assurances to consumers as to how their data is captured, processed and stored. Attendees will learn: •
Highlights of the consumer research conducted in both the UK and US into consumer trust and spending habits
•
Why organisations should be listening to the voice of the customer and moving data security up their agendas
•
Why contact centres should be looking to descope their environments from the requirements of PCI DSS.
Tony’s experience in customer management and IT spans over 25 years – years that have been shaped by rapid change, the rise of digital channels, the emergence of cloud computing and a re-writing of the rules for customer engagement in an increasing regulated environment. Tony joined PCI Pal in November 2016, as Sales Director for EMEA. PCI Pal is a suite of solutions designed to help run your customer contact operations in adherence with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). All solutions have been developed for the contact centre market by a team of contact centre specialists.
11
Customer interaction. Augmented. www.diabolocom.com
FOCUS GROUPS 2019
The Evolution of Self-Service in Contact Centres
The Evolution of Self-Service in Contact Centres
Moderator: Michael Savva, UK Business Development Manager, Diabolocom This workshop will explore the strategies for attracting customers to use self-service features and a broader discussion of the future of automation and technology in contact centres. With the continued ability to automate processes and offer greater accessibility of information, the objective is to free up agents availability for added value calls.
Michael has extensive experience working with companies to help them optimise customer experiences and interactions. With an understanding of yesteryears operations and the new digital era that we are in; Michael has witnessed some of the growing challenges companies are faced with today and the opportunities that are ahead.
13
FOCUS GROUPS 2019
Future of the Contact Centre
Achieving and Exceeding the Customer Experience Expectations of the Uber, Monzo, Deliveroo Generation
Moderator: Andrew Hall, UK evangelist, Odigo UK Millennials and increasingly Gen-Zs are early adopters of innovative and disruptive services delivered or facilitated by mobile apps. They are also the next consumer powerhouse generation. Customers now, often unconsciously, measure the quality of engagement across all business lines with the best experience they had. Customer experience is the battleground as rivals seek the rapid scaling required to dominate a sector. As a result, the bar is being continuously raised and CX innovation is determining success. For long-standing businesses, the fast moving change and seemingly constant disruption can be viewed as a threat or an opportunity. For the purposes of this discussion, we view it as an opportunity! The issues we’ll cover in a wide-ranging debate will include customer experience as a brand, changing customer service demands, and emerging channels of customer communication.
Andrew leads Innovation and acts as the UK evangelist for Odigo UK, a leading omnichannel customer engagement SaaS solution. He has over 20 years of experience in helping organisations to transform and grow the way they engage and support their customers, whilst delivering measurable business outcomes. Working with some of the world’s most successful brands across multiple sectors including Financial Services, Insurance, Retail, Outsourcing, Technology, Energy and Utilities, has provided him insights into the challenges organisations face today and the journey many are on to deliver new innovation and disruptive customer engagement strategies.
15
BRILLIANT CUSTOMER CARE E FLEXIBLE & SECURE HOMEWO ORKING We help leading UK brands — including DPD, Bupa and Allianz — improve e service, reduce costs and enhance the eir corporate social responsibility. tĞ͛ƌĞ ĚŝīĞƌĞŶƚ ďĞĐĂƵƐĞ Ăůů ŽĨ ŽƵƌ ĐƵƐƚŽŵĞƌ ƐĞƌǀŝĐĞ ĂĚǀŝƐŽƌƐ ǁŽƌŬ ĨƌŽŵ ŚŽŵĞ͕ ŵĂŬŝŶŐ ĂĐĐĞƐƐŝďůĞ ĐĂƌĞĞƌƐ ĂǀĂŝůĂďůĞ ƚŽ ĞǀĞƌLJŽŶĞ͘ KƵƌ ĂǁĂƌĚ ǁŝŶŶŝŶŐ ƐĞƌǀŝĐĞ ƚĞĂŵ ŝƐ & ĂƵƚŚŽƌŝƐĞĚ͕ ĂƐ ǁĞůů ĂƐ /^K ĂĐĐƌĞĚŝƚĞĚ͕ ĂŶĚ ŽǀĞƌ ϳϬϬ ƐƚƌŽŶŐ͘ tŚĞƚŚĞƌ ŝƚ͛Ɛ Ă ĐĂůů͕ ĞŵĂŝů͕ ǁĞďĐŚĂƚ͕ ƚĞdžƚ Žƌ ĞǀĞŶ Ă ƐŽĐŝĂů ŵĞĚŝĂ ƉŽƐƚ͕ ƚŚĞLJ͛ƌĞ ĂůǁĂLJƐ ƌĞĂĚLJ ƚŽ ŚĞůƉ Ͷ Ϯϰ dž ϳ dž ϯϲϱ͘ /Ĩ LJŽƵ͛Ě ůŝŬĞ ƚŽ ŬŶŽǁ ŵŽƌĞ͕ ĐŽŶƚĂĐƚ ƵƐ ŽŶ ϬϮϬϴ ϵϵϲ ϱϴϰϮ͕ ƐĂůĞƐΛƐĞŶƐĞĞ͘ĐŽ͘ƵŬ Žƌ ǀŝƐŝƚ ƵƐ Ăƚ ǁǁǁ͘ƐĞŶƐĞĞ͘ĐŽ͘ƵŬ͘ ^ĞŶƐĠĞ Ͷ ďƌŝůůŝĂŶƚ ƐĞƌǀŝĐĞ͕ ŇĞdžŝďůĞ ŚŽŵĞǁŽƌŬŝŶŐ
ISO 27001 CERTIFIED T
AUTHORISED & REGULAT TED BY THE FINANCIAL CONDUCT AUTHORITY Regulated No. 670732 Sensée Financial Services Limited
British Assessment Bureau
FOCUS GROUPS 2019
Flexible Homeworking
Benefits for Businesses, Customers and Society of Flexible Homeworking Moderator: Mark Walton, CEO, Sensée Sector analysts ContactBabel estimate that 49% of UK contact centres are now using or evaluating homeworking. This interactive focus group will discuss, as well as provide valuable insight into, the benefits of flexible home working. In addition this session will also give you best practice advice on how to implement, or optimise, homeworking within your customer service operation. Those involved in service strategy — such as service Directors and Contact Centre Managers — as well as department heads responsible for implementing homeworking — including HR, IT, Resource Planning and Operations — will all find this workshop valuable. During this interactive and fast-paced session, you’ll discover: •
State of the ‘homeworking’ nation — how many UK contact centres are using homeworking currently and the anticipated future growth
•
Benefits for businesses, customers and society — where 'bricks and mortar' contact centres are falling short. And, the benefits that homeworking brings from reducing costs and increasing customer satisfaction to improving corporate social responsibility
• •
Challenges — what businesses view as the main challenges to overcome Solutions — from training to management and IT, best practice tips that will help you to implement, and optimise, flexible homeworking successfully.
Mark is a well-known business leader within the customer service and contact centre sector with over 15 years’ experience. As a director at HEROtsc for six years, he helped deliver spectacular growth, turning the company from a regional player to a market leader with a turnover of £100 million. In 2007 Mark founded Aquira, the UK’s leading end-to-end direct marketing delivery as well and data compliance business. He has also led the UK operation of US homeworking pioneers Arise. In his positions as CEO of Sensée, and chair of the UK Contact Centre Forum Homeworking Group, Mark helps businesses from all sectors use new working practices to cut costs, improve service and increase corporate social responsibility.
17
FOCUS GROUPS 2019
18
Homeworking — benefits for businesses, customers and society Our workshops at the Engage Focus group saw delegates from retail to finance and public services discussing where traditional 'bricks and mortar' contact centres are falling short and how advisors working from home will help.
UK homeworking established and set to grow fast Where are you up to with homeworking?
7% Decision to not
13% Considering
use homeworking
whether it’s worthwhile
13% Working out
Participants in our interactive sessions completed a brief survey that formed the basis for discussions. The survey allowed us to collect their thoughts on key issues around homeworking including where they are up to with using home-based advisors, what the benefits are and where the main challenges lie. We've included results from the survey, as well as highlights from the discussion, in this summary.
how to do it
Although the idea of homeworking has been much talked about by businesses for quite a while, for many in our groups it was only widespread for management and other roles that required travel.
27% Pilot study 13% Expanding our existing homeworking 0% Reducing homeworking
Addressing the problems of office-based work 5 (A lot) Question: How much do you feel homeworking will help with these operational goals?
Delegate quote
"up to now it's been all about management working from home, the next step is to give more access to other staff." Overall our forum attendees were well ahead of the curve with 80% actively engaged with implementing or maintaining home-based advisors. And, only 20% still weighing up whether it was worthwhile, having decided to not use it or reducing their footprint.
4
Nationally, sector analysts ContactBabel, estimate that 49% of UK contact centres are now using or evaluating homeworking. Their survey of UK contact centres also revealed that the picture is very similar across all contact centre sizes with small 5-10 seat operations are as likely to have homeworkers as enterprises with 10,000 + advisors.
3
2
Increasing quality
Elasticity (Yearly flex)
Employee engagement
Agility (Real-time flex)
Flexibility (Intraday flex)
Disaster recovery
Better recruitment
Accessibility and diversity
Reducing environmental impact
1 (Not at all)
ContactBabel also highlight the possibility of considerable growth over the next few years, with UK contact centres saying that although 80% of advisors did not work from home in 2018, this figure will be just 28% by 2020. We asked delegates how they felt homeworking would help their service organisations, and overcome some of the challenges that 'bricks and mortar' contact centres face. Top of the list was accessibility and diversity. Attendees noted that
FOCUS GROUPS 2019
Delegate quote:
"nearly all of our advisors are young, with the best will in the world how are they going to empathise with someone who has a family and find they can't pay their mortgage."
19
contact centre sites can physically exclude those with disabilities. In addition, having to travel to be on-site for relatively long shifts also bars those with other responsibilities at home — carers and parents with children for example. This is borne out in our experience as 30% of our team are either registered as disabled or care for someone at home, a figure far above the national average. Where a contact centre is situated can also have a bearing on diversity and, in particular, age and ethnic mix. Being able to draw team members from anywhere in the UK makes it far easier for organisations to build teams that are more representative of the culture of the UK as whole. With so much in the news about environmental issues, perhaps it was no surprise that reducing the environmental impact of businesses was also seen as something that working from home could help with. In a recent study the reduction in carbon footprint created by moving work away from offices, and into the home, was estimated to be as much as 88%. The savings largely come about because of reduction in travel and, where car commuting is concerned, there are also many benefits in terms of keeping air cleaner in towns and cities.
Delegate quote:
"we're often competing with other call centres in the same location for the same staff, if they can get better pay next door why would they stay?"
Disaster recovery was next on the list with homeworkers being seen as very valuable to ensure organisations can continue to provide service when disaster strikes, and their UK / overseas and in-house / outsource advisors can’t get into the office — or it’s unserviceable. Finding skilled recruits with the right attitude who will stay is a challenge for all contact centres. This is only made harder as the average wage for new starters is estimated to be around £17.5k and unemployment remains low. Homeworking enables businesses to cast their recruitment net far wider — giving them access to people, such as carers and those with disabilities, and places, rural communities for example, who otherwise would be accessible. When it comes to the hard-edge problems of optimising costs and maintaining service
levels flexibility is key and our groups placed all three types of adaptability together. Interestingly flexibility is the main reason why organisations choose to use our homeworking customer care services. However, our teams' employment contracts have been created to offer work periods by the half hour and flexibility about when in the week / month / year these are worked. This gives our advisors greater freedom to fit work times around their lives. And, our clients the adaptability they need to accurately match resources with contact demand and meet service levels whilst optimising costs. The effectiveness of this approach is demonstrated by occupancy and for our teams above [90%] is typical, well above the industry. The fact that the focus groups had in mind traditional, fixed shift employment contracts, was the reason why they estimated homeworking's value, in terms of flexibility, lower. One of the hot consumer trends discussed by delegates was demand for extended opening hours and customer service at weekends. Once again homeworking is well suited to meet the demands of this trend as the inconvenience of the work times is offset by the convenience of working at home and not having to travel to work as well as return late at night etc. In fact, much of the work that we do is out of hours and weekends, allowing contact centres sites to optimise their on-site fixed and semi-fixed contract staff around 9 – 5 weekdays. Employee engagement was another area where the groups felt that working from home could offer a boost. Indeed, one financial services delegate pointed out that their homeworking programme was being used to help retain experienced staff who were considering leaving for reasons of work-life balance, childcare or because they felt they needed a change. Finally, although delegates thought that homeworking was least likely to boost the quality of customer contacts, they still felt it offered some value here. It was also noted
FOCUS GROUPS 2019
20
Perception the main challenge
Question: Rank the following in order of how much of a challenge they are. (1-Most challenging, 6 - Least challenging)
11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Managing advisors
Recruitment
Supporting staff day-to-day
Training and coaching
Meeting compliance requirements
Technology
0
Delegate quote:
"all the information needed to ensure productivity, quality and compliance is available
Number of times ranked as 1 or 2 (More challenging)
12
that, as homeworking offers the potential to engage workers — as well as attract candidates with better skills and attitudes — this would have a significant effect on first call resolution, compliance scores and service measures such as CSat and NPS. This is certainly something that is borne out by our own experience of comparing homeworkers to officebased staff.
Training and coaching — concerns about the effectiveness of homebased training meant that attendees from companies with existing homeworking operations typically asked staff to come into the office. Our advisors are trained at home using an eLearning solution that supports live learning with webcams, virtual breakout rooms, discussion forums and quizzes to confirm understanding.
The final part of our focus groups was spent discussing the potential challenges to homeworking and how they can be overcome.
Supporting staff day to day — much of the discussion here was about how organisations and team leaders could support staff in their roles. Our Live Desk application allows individuals, teams and leaders to communicate continually through their shifts via web chat and voice with webcam if they wish.
Technology — the Office for National Statistics say that 90% of UK households now have internet access. This is giving more people the opportunity to take up home-based advisor roles than ever before. However, delegates felt that supporting individuals in their own homes could be a challenge and that internal IT organisations would need to adapt to support home-based advisors. Sensée have made it easy for organisations who want to try homeworking by providing a cloudbased secure technology platform that covers the essentials such as scheduling, team communication, contact distribution and training. Our support team also uses tools and processes to support individuals in their own homes.
Recruitment — in general recruitment was not seen as a challenge and being able to attract staff from further afield an advantage. Although, making sure that candidates are suited to homeworking, as part of the recruitment and probation process, was identified as an area that would require special attention if organisations were to retain advisors. Managing advisors — with so much performance data, call recordings and quality processes already available, management of advisors was not, in the main, regarded as being a problem for most contact centres.
to our organisation whether agents are handling calls in the office or at home."
Meeting compliance requirements — this is often perceived to be a potential problem, however the reality is that most regulations can be met with a homeworking model. For example, Sensée is Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) authorised and regulated as well as ISO 27001 Accredited, allowing transactions in the most regulated sector, financial services, to be handled.
Having discussed challenges with three groups during the day, perhaps the key learning point was that the main challenges for homeworking are simply perception and fear of change.
FOCUS GROUPS 2019
21
Thank You to our Sponsors Over 300 leading global brands trust the Cyara CX Assurance Platform to improve the experience they provide their customers. We help organisations achieve flawless customer experiences through automated testing and monitoring that simulate real world customer interactions across IVR, voice and digital channels. If your CX needs to be the best, it needs to be tested by Cyara. In the Beginning - In 2006, Alok Kulkarni was a solutions architect at Genesys working on a state-of-the art speech recognition system for a major government agency in Australia. He knew he needed to test this new system to make sure it could withstand an onslaught of incoming calls. But there was no solution that could reliably replicate high volumes of customer interactions. T: +44 0203 786 5070 W: www.cyara.com
Diabolocom offers an omnichannel augmented customer interaction management solution in the cloud for customer service and sales teams. Thanks to its fast-to-deploy, intuitive interface, and local business support, Diabolocom enables companies to offer superior customer experience and improve their operational efficiency. Contact: Michael Savva T: +44 7984 868 269 E: michael.savva@diabolocom.com W: www.diabolocom.com
Odigo helps large organisations connect with individuals through worldclass, cloud-based contact centre solutions. Our cutting-edge, proprietary technologies enable a seamless, efficient, omnichannel experience for your customers and a satisfying, engaging experience for your service agents. Odigo serves more than 400,000 agents and business users globally. With a 25-year history of industry firsts, Odigo has more than 350 clients around the world. Odigo is a Capgemini brand, which means we benefit from the scale and expertise of one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology services and digital transformation. W: www.odigo.com
CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT TRANSFORMATION
2 Tickets ÂŁ995
9 JULY 2020
VICTORIA PARK PLAZA I LONDON
Thursday 9 July 2020 Victoria Park Plaza, London The Customer Engagement Transformation Conference comes as a growing number of organisations are realising the business benefits that accrue when they work to transform and evolve their customer engagement strategies to keep pace, and engage more closely, with their customers.
CustomerEngagementTransformation.com #EngageCustomer Organised by
FOCUS GROUPS 2019
23
Thank You to our Sponsors PCI Pal provides secure payment solutions for contact centres and businesses taking Cardholder Not Present (CNP) payments. We are the only true cloud provider able to deliver solutions globally. Our globally accessible cloud platform empowers organisations to take payments securely without bringing their environments into scope of PCI DSS and other relevant data security rules and regulations. With the entire product portfolio served from PCI Pal’s cloud environment, integrations with existing telephony, payment and desktop environments is simple and light-touch, ensuring no degradation of service while achieving security and compliance. Contact: Tony Smith, Sales Director, EMEA E: info@pcipal.com W: www.pcipal.com
We help leading UK brands — such as DPD, Bupa, L&G and Allianz — manage their customers better. Our results include increasing customer satisfaction, reducing costs and enhancing corporate social responsibility. Uniquely, our award-winning team of 700+ advisors work from home, making accessible careers available to everyone. Whether it's a call, email, webchat, text or even a social media post, they're always ready to help — 24x7x365. Our secure working practices mean we're FCA authorised as well as ISO accredited. We're also leading the 'flexible working revolution' — providing technology and consulting to help others release the benefits of homeworking too. Sensee — brilliant service, flexible and secure home working Contact: Mark Walton, CEO M: 07876 641422 E: mark.walton@sensee.co.uk W: www.sensee.co.uk/business/how-we-do-it.html
SYKES is a digital marketing and customer service global outsourcer, providing customer-engagement services to Global 2000 companies. With global headquarters in Tampa, Florida, SYKES’ sophisticated solutions satisfy the needs of major companies around the world, primarily in the retail, communications, financial services, technology and healthcare industries. SYKES’ differentiated end-to-end service platform effectively engages consumers at every touch point in their customer lifecycle, starting from digital marketing and acquisition to customer support, technical support, up-sell/cross-sell and retention. We provide services through multiple communication channels encompassing phone, e-mail, web, chat, social media and digital self-service. T: +44 131 458 6500 W: www.sykes.com
EBM Group Events Future of the Contact Centre Conference
Focus Groups
Thursday 13 February 2020
Friday 3 April & Friday 25 September 2020
With the contact centre space providing a significant, growing opportunity for customer experience, it is these touch points that provide a powerful tool to transform the success of a brand in today’s digital world where customers expect responses 24x7x365.
Our exclusive Engage Focus groups allow senior individuals working in customer and employee engagement to come together and voice their thoughts and share experiences across a wide range of topics in a structured professional environment.
Digital Workplace Conference
Employee Wellbeing Conference
Thursday 12 March 2020 Our Digital Workplace Directors Forum will examine in detail how the needs of our people are changing and how and where we can equip them to cater for this workplace revolution. Failure to do this is not an option.
Employee Engagement Summit 2020 Friday 15 May 2020
Thursday 12 March 2020 The challenges and opportunities relating to the mental, financial and physical health related wellbeing of our people are now firmly at the top of the business agenda, alongside increasing awareness and understanding of the myriad of issues involved.
CX Marketing Summit 2020 Friday 19 June 2020
The Summit is the premier event of its kind in Europe and is back and bigger than ever for 2020, being held on 10th May in Central London.
Our case study and high level networking driven CX Marketing Summit will examine in detail the key issues, challenges and opportunities facing the marketing community against a background of rapid advances in technologies
Customer Engagement Transformation Conference
Customer Engagement Summit 2020
Thursday 9 July 2020
Monday 9 November 2020
With the digital revolution in full swing, it’s imperative that organisations start to consider their customers’ needs in order to meet changing expectations. Customer demands are increasing rapidly, and the technology available to improve customer experience is advancing in front of our eyes.
Our flagship Customer Engagement Summit is back. Delegates will hear from 45+ speakers, and we’ll be covering the latest, hottest topics in the industry.
Engage Awards 2020 Monday 9 November 2020 Following on from the success of the 2019 Engage Awards programme, which broke records across the board, we are delighted to announce the renaming of our programme for 2020 to the International Engage Awards.
01932 506 300 (press 1)
www.ebm.media Live events proudly organised by Engage Business Media Ltd
tickets@ebm.media
EngageCustomer.com