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IP Telephony

Contact Centers

Mobility

Services

Creating a Winning Customer Experience:


At the Center of
How Companies Compete

May 2006
avaya.com

CONTENTS

Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1

Martin Hand, Continental Airlines .................................................................................... 2

Robert Lyons, Convergys .................................................................................................. 6

Thor Tielemans, DaimlerChrysler ..................................................................................... 9

Greg Ecker, Whirlpool Corporation ............................................................................... 12

Best Practices ................................................................................................................... 15


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INTRODUCTION

More and more companies see the customer experience as the way of differentiating

themselves in the marketplace. As products and services become commodities, market

leaders are attempting to build a unique, memorable “experience” for their customers and

prospects as the basis for brand differentiation. Winning brands are no longer created

simply with marketing and advertising; rather, the customer’s experience with the company

is quickly becoming the manifestation of its brand. In short, actions speak louder than words.

From discussions with the Avaya Customer Contact Council – a network of senior business

leaders from 22 global companies – it is clear that perceptive executives have recognized
that the customer service operations and its constant contact with customers can play

a major role in creating this branded customer experience. “Our business is extremely

competitive, almost commoditized,” explains one Council member. “To the degree we

can differentiate ourselves, it is through enhanced customer service.” Another remarked:

“We are looking at our customer interactions and asking, ‘How can we truly make this a

competitive advantage?”

So, if a customer’s experience is becoming the center of how companies compete, then, customer

contact becomes the center of how to create the differentiated customer’s experience.

For many companies, the contact center has been a major vehicle for delivering and

completing customer contacts. Naturally, this calls for a change in orientation in the

contact center: from an emphasis on optimizing the customer contact – where the goal

is productivity and efficiency – to a fully realized model where the goal is to support the
brand and corporate strategy across all customer touch points – with the major customer

touch point being the contact center.

But exactly how does a company make this transition? How does a contact center within

a customer service organization re-engineer and re-architect itself to deliver that branded

customer experience? To see how innovative companies are accomplishing all this, Avaya

recently talked with customer care professionals from four very different businesses, in

industries with their own unique challenges.

The question was simple and direct: How are you creating a more compelling, more

powerful customer experience in support of your company’s brand strategy?


COMMUNICATIONS
AT THE HEART OF BUSINESS

MARTIN HAND, VICE PRESIDENT


Nowhere is customer service a more critical differentiator than in the highly competitive
airlines industry of today. Continental Airlines’ Martin Hand knows that better than anyone.
With his eyes firmly fixed on the long haul, Hand believes that customer ‘care’ holds the
key to Continental’s establishing itself as a global carrier of choice.

Like a long distance runner, Continental has been slowly gaining on its domestic competition.
Overtaking Northwest Airlines in Available Seat Miles (ASMs) in 2005, Continental became the
fourth largest domestic carrier in the United States, behind American Airlines, United Airlines and
Delta. It is looking to create a travel experience for each of its customers that will differentiate
Continental from the others. This is to cement its position, not just domestically, but globally as well.

Hand, vice president, reservations, customer care and city ticket offices, oversees
Continental’s 11 contact centers. Three of these are based in the United States and
eight are located in cities around the world. With customer service as his mantra, he is
leveraging technology to enable his team to bring in the results the business demands.

WINNING IN THE TOUGHEST INDUSTRY


Competition intensified in this already competitive industry following September 11, 2001, when the world
changed dramatically in so many ways. Says Hand, “For the past 10 years, but especially since 9-11, we’ve
had heightened sense of what it means to provide stellar customer service. Today, more than ever before, we
really are competing on customer service or what I refer to as the customer experience. What we need to do is
to make sure that we take care of our customers so that, in the long term, they will continue to choose us.”

Targeting a 12.5 percent increase in ASM internationally for 2006, Continental is counting on technologies to
help it raise the level of customer service and improve its agent productivity.

It comes down to doing things differently than the competition, Hand says, and to doing those things that
customers still want – like providing meals, entertainment, pillows and blankets – when the competition either
charges for such services or has dispensed with them altogether.

Several factors keep the industry’s competitive cauldron bubbling, Hand explains. Fuel and labor costs,
pricing versus loads pressure, and distribution costs all fuel the fire.

The year 2005 marked the first time in the history of aviation that the cost of fuel outstripped the cost of
labor, making it the most compelling cost pressure the industry faces.

Like every airline, Continental is also challenged to balance its loads factor (the percent of filled seats on
a flight) against pricing. The insatiable demand in the Northeast corridor, for example, pressures carriers to
shoot for high loads at the expense of price. While operating with higher loads helps revenue, it ultimately
undercuts profitability. “At the end of the day, these economics still have to balance,” Hand says.
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Finally, airlines must address the charges they incur when travel agencies book tickets through the Global
Distribution System. Every booking and change generates a charge to the airline. “This is one of the reasons
we have absolutely tried to go much more direct to the customer and use direct distribution channels like our
Continental.com,” Hand says.

Together, these factors are driving Continental to optimize the efficiency of its customer care operations so as
to control these costs as much as possible.

Personalizing the transaction


So Continental is using technology as a means of capturing customer information and personalizing its
service, while simultaneously enabling its agents to stay focused on the reservation, Hand says. The more the
agents know about the customer going into a transaction, the better they will be able to efficiently meet the
customer’s needs and personalize the service that they provide.

Hand traces Continental’s strong focus on the customer and its heightened sense of corporate mission to
1994 when the company put its “Go Forward” plan into place. This 4-pronged program, which encompasses
marketing, finances, operations and human resources, takes a “win-win-win” approach in which everyone –
customers, shareholders and employees – wins together.

Sixty to seventy percent of Continental’s domestic contact center operations is devoted to selling tickets
through its toll-free number; its three domestic contact centers handle about 95 percent inbound traffic.
The remaining thirty percent of its domestic contact center operation covers such service-oriented special
functions as foreign language desks, group bookings, groups that assist travel agencies with bookings, and a
help desk for Continental.com bookings.

A separate group of 200 employees in these domestic centers are devoted to customer care.

“We don’t have any problems, only opportunities and challenges. These employees respond to and rectify any
challenges that may have arisen for our customers,” Hand explains.

”We’ve really focused on sales through our direct channels,” Hand says. “Moreover, over the past three or four
years, we’re using technology to help us personalize our customer interactions as much as possible.” Our goal, he
says, is one-call resolution for all transactions. “We’re using technology to route customers to the right set of agents
and also to give the agents the information they need to most efficiently satisfy their customers’ demands.”

For example, the airline’s frequent flyer program enables Continental to differentiate its customers based on
their level of flying, Hand explains. “We have a lot of information about our frequent flyers and personalize
our interactions with them based on their needs and wants. We’re focusing on getting that information out
to the reservation agents so that we can have one-call resolution. Knowing the customers’ wants and needs,
agents also will be able to identify special niches they might be able to fill for them, such as transfers for car
rentals or hotel reservations – those things that complete the travel experience for the customer through a
single touch point.”

“When a customer speaks in his or her frequent flyer number, the agent receives an immediate screen pop of
the customer’s profile – information that enables the agent to personalize the transaction for the customer,”
Hand explains. For example, knowing a customer’s flight history, including preferred days and times of travel,
an agent is better able to suggest a satisfactory flight schedule and more efficiently complete the call. The
agent would also have information about any “challenges” the customer may have encountered in the past
and be able to address or apologize for them in the course of the call.
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Market segmentation is also helping Continental meet the differing needs of its client base, Hand adds. While
price is always a factor, it tends to be less of a factor for business travelers. Leisure travelers are more price
sensitive than their business counterparts. Business travelers tend to be more pressed for time and want to
complete their transaction as quickly and as efficiently as possible. So the self-service voice applications are
a boon to both customer satisfaction and agent productivity.

Speech recognition, the only way to go


“First introduced in the fourth quarter of 2005, self-service is a huge initiative this year,” Hand says.
Continental is deploying voice recognition applications to handle flight information, reconfirmation and
internal, employee bookings, thereby freeing valuable agent time for more demanding inquiries.

Flight information and reconfirmation are straightforward inquiries that lend themselves well to a self-service
environment. Given the flight number, the system can automatically provide the arrival time. Given the record
locator number, the system can automatically reconfirm a flight. If the information is correct, the caller would
just say “finish,” to end the call. If the information is incorrect, the call can readily be transferred to an agent.

Finally, by using speech recognition to handle travel requests from its 43,000 employees, rather than routing
them into a reservation center for booking, Continental is freeing its agents up to handle customer calls.

Continental also is implementing speech recognition applications to help expedite flight bookings for
customers. Before being connected to an agent, customers speak their frequent flyer number, travel dates and
destination. Then through the CTI application, the reservation data base “screen pops” the customer’s profile
and flight information to the reservation agent – jump starting the call and enabling the agent to handle the
transaction faster and more efficiently. This application is currently being deployed domestically and is slated
to go global in the fourth quarter of 2006.

Payoff in productivity
Hand estimates that, since implementing self-service, CTI-enabled technology, Continental has realized as
much as a 10 percent increase in agent productivity, which represents a time saving of 30 seconds or more
on a call. Actual sales are also increasing as a result, he said. “There’s been an uplift in revenue overall
because the agents are able to concentrate on selling, rather than on data collection. The increased efficiency
also enhances the overall customer experience.”

Of course, some agents – and some customers – have adapted to the change better than others, Hand
notes. “We’re all human beings and some people adapt to change and/or the enhancements or adoption of
technology more rapidly than others.”

For agents, the answer lies in a new e-learning system that enables Continental to customize its training to each
agent’s individual needs. Gone are the days of “one size fits all” in training. This new system brings individualized
training directly to the agent’s desktop; training that is geared to the agent’s entire “balanced scorecard.”

For customers, the answer lies in Continental’s commitment to its quality improvement process, which
continually refines the voice response system to enhance customer satisfaction. In fact, customers are already
a lot less likely to opt out of the voice response system now than they were when it was introduced four
months ago, Hand observes. Abandonment rates have dropped from as much as 30 or 40 percent initially to
just 10 percent today.
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He attributes the reduction to Continental’s process of continual improvement. “We record all of our calls so
that we can really see where the customer is having challenges. Then we constantly refine our system because
we want to create a positive customer experience.”

Continental’s primary reservation line offers callers just five main choices, Hand says. “We’ve been trying to
streamline things as much as possible and get people to the right place as quickly as possible.”

Proactive marketing will be taking off


Over the next three to four years, Hand expects to see Continental mining its customer information so that it
can be as proactive as possible in serving its clients.

“We’re going to be evolving our Customer Information System to capture as much information as we can
about our customers with an eye to marketing almost directly to them. At the same time, through our CTI
applications, speech recognition, and self-service systems, we’ll be trying to give customers as much detail as
we can about their travel – from flight time changes to weather forecasts. There’s also the potential to tie-in to
such other products as car rentals, hotel reservations, or even trip insurance.”

As a hypothetical example, Hand says, a customer may have logged onto Continental’s Web site with his or
her frequent flyer number to research a family vacation to Hawaii. When that customer later calls the contact
center to book a business trip, the agent will have the Hawaii information in the data base and be able to
inquire, at the end of the business transaction, whether the customer would also like assistance in booking
the family trip to Hawaii.

“I think it’s a big win and also facilitates our being able to provide services to customers. Knowing as much as
possible about the customer will help us make calling an 800 number much more of a personalized experience.”

Combining people and technology


Hand endorses a phased approach to rolling out new technology. He recommends rolling out technology in
a series of pilots. “This gives you the opportunity to capture customer feedback and then incorporate that
feedback into your business model so as to ensure that it’s a good customer experience.”

It’s also important to communicate with your customers. He says. “Communicate as much as you can – both
proactively and reactively. This will help you personalize the overall transaction.”

Finally, he advises companies to empower their contact center representatives. “That first point of contact can
make such a huge difference to the customer. We try to push as much of the decision making as far down in
the organization as we can. We empower our agents to take care of the customer. I think that this enhances
the customer experience and builds long term customer loyalty.”

The secret, for Continental, Hand says, is the combination of people and technology. “At the end of the day –
regardless of the technology, tools, policies and procedures, we put in place – we’re getting the job done
through people.”
COMMUNICATIONS
AT THE HEART OF BUSINESS

ROBERT LYONS, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT


If any company has an insider’s view of customer care in day-to-day practice, it would be
Convergys Corporation. In fact, Convergys manages more than two million customer care
contacts each and every day, more than any single enterprise anywhere. As the largest
customer care outsourcer in the business, Cincinnati-based Convergys performs hands-on
customer care duties for organizations such as the U.S. Postal Service, Comcast, DuPont,
Cingular, and a long list of other enterprises worldwide.

Robert Lyons, senior vice president, global information services, shared with Avaya
his observations about where customer care is going, how enterprises can leverage
technology to provide a unique customer experience, and what executives should invest in
today to drive business value .

SEVEN IDEAS FOR MEMORABLE CUSTOMER CARE


What should be driving investment decisions regarding customer care? Robert Lyons contends that
investments should focus on business growth by improving customer lifetime value, which is defined as the
Net Present Value of the profitability of all current and future customers. “For improved customer lifetime
value, companies must develop and then execute a customer care strategy that positively ‘moves three primary
levers’–customer profitability, customer retention, and customer acquisition,” says Lyons.

Lyons points out that improved customer retention has the greatest impact on the firm’s value; a one point increase
in customer retention can translate into four points of overall customer lifetime value. However, companies should
continue to invest in ways to lower the costs associated with serving customers (without a negative impact on
retention) while increasing the “share of customers’ wallets” with cross-sell and up-sell programs.

“In 2006, companies globally will spend a little over $365 billion in customer care with approximately $50
billion of this spend focused on technology,” explains Lyons. “While companies will continue their quests for
operational excellence within customer care operations, more and more investment dollars will be earmarked
for technologies that drive customer value such as advanced interaction management and analytics and
business intelligence.”

Optimize your customer value


According to Lyons, companies have historically come to Convergys looking primarily to reduce the costs of
providing customer care – especially those industries and businesses that normally had to invest huge sums
in managing customer service problems and issues. “But more and more companies have begun to recognize
that there is huge potential in those customer contacts,” says Lyons. “You can harness technology to drive
business value and differentiate your company by treating customer contacts as assets, and by leveraging those
relationships. There is more upside in optimizing the value of that customer, than there is in pure cost control.”
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Be careful of what you measure
With many companies, providing customer care is still viewed as purely a cost center to be managed –
companies look almost exclusively at efficiency metrics like “average talk time” and “number of calls per
agent”. While Lyons agrees these can be valid and useful, he cautions that they can easily backfire. “If you
focus exclusively on something like ‘average talk time’ you may be able to make substantial improvements
there, yet miss the bigger picture. For example, in the healthcare industry, one major goal for customer care is
to effectively manage claims. Therefore, spending more time with customers may in fact reduce claims and
drive overall costs down, supporting the goal of helping people, while reducing visits to the doctor’s office.
The lesson here: Understand your customer care strategy and how it supports your business strategy, then
establish the metrics to truly measure against this strategy and get the right results.”

Exploit the technologies that can empower your agents


Speech recognition is not just for customers anymore; it can be deployed for agent use. “If a customer calls
to say ‘you lost my package,’ the agent replies, ‘tell me your address’, but the system does the look-up,
while the agent remains focused on the customer. This naturally translates to higher productivity, lower costs
and happier customers. Taking this a step further – we are starting to analyze voice and speech patterns.”
Measuring voice inflection, patterns and tone can help an agent determine if the customer is eager to get a
quick answer or would rather take time in sorting out an issue. This technology not only helps drive agent
behavior for better customer care results, but you can even match your agent pool to the personalities of the
customers requiring care.

Customer value analytics are gold


Lyons advises that an investment priority for customer care operations should be in customer value analytics.
“This is gaining the ability to determine how to best handle customers – to collect and distribute customer
information to agents so that each customer is treated differently – providing the right experience for each
individual.” Lyons also points to the value of high-precision operational analytics in Convergys’ own contact
centers. “With some 60,000 agents serving our customers’ customers at any given moment, a solution that
improves our agent deployments and utilization by just one percent, can save us millions of dollars. There
are also huge gains in providing customers with ‘self-service’ options for basic transactions. Customers get
their answers, are happier and it frees up valuable agent time to devote to customer interactions with greater
business value.” In essence, strong customer value analytics need to be coupled with operational analytics
to create the customer experience you’re seeking to provide. At the same time, the analytics can help the
business, by recommending improvements gained from the insights customers provide. The contact center
becomes one of your greatest sources for gaining intelligence on your business.

Leverage the world for talented people


As businesses become more specialized, the knowledge and skills of customer care agents become more
critical to create a differentiated customer experience. “With the right technologies,” says Lyons, “you can
attract and integrate specialists to work as agents in your customer care organization, no matter where they
live. For example, today, agents can easily work from their homes– literally ‘home agents’– yet their actual
home locations are transparent to the customers calling into the customer care operations. By implementing
remote agent technologies, whether in off-site offices or homes, companies can access talent virtually
anywhere in the world and provide special consultation for customers.”
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Open all channels for customer contact
“No matter what your customer base,” says Lyons, “they will each have their own preferences for interacting
with your business – whether it’s Web, or e-mail, or phone, or wireless. The modern customer care
organization must be able to accept and seamlessly integrate the various channels, or ways customers contact
them, to improve the customers’ experiences and drive productivity gains.”

Keep thinking and adapting


While experience and learnings can be useful concepts that worked for a company in the past, these
experiences are not reliable paradigms for today’s customers and their future demands. “As you invest in
customer care and the supporting technology,” says Lyons, “I believe you have to constantly ask yourself,
‘what will customers want and need tomorrow, that I’m not providing today? What are the real costs of
treating customers as assets and the impact on my business?’ And, finally, ‘is my business strategy driving my
customer care strategy and are my technology investments aligned with that to win?’”
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THOR TIELEMANS, CIO, CUSTOMER ASSISTANCE CEN T E R


As Thor Tielemans sees it, the key to providing exceptional service to automobile owners is
putting them in the hands of people with a passion for automobiles. “The agents who staff
the DaimlerChrysler Customer Assistance Center in Maastricht, The Netherlands, are actually
auto enthusiasts who happen to be working in customer service, rather than vice versa.”

Tielemans, CIO for the Customer Assistance Center (CAC) and something of an auto
enthusiast himself, is responsible for delivering the technologies and tools the CAC needs
to fulfill its mission — which is to provide the most responsive service to the owners of
DaimlerChrysler automobiles across Europe.

ACCELERATION AND PRECISE HANDLING IN CUSTOMER SERVICE


Even for giants like DaimlerChrysler, the auto market in Europe has presented steep challenges in recent
years. An economic drawback, along with rising costs for steel, oil and plastics has put price pressures on
all the DaimlerChrysler brands, which include passenger car stalwarts such as Mercedes-Benz, as well as
Chrysler, Jeep, Maybach, and Smart marques. At the same time, other European and Asian marketers offer
increasingly high-quality products, which are sometimes perceived as offering parity with the venerable
DaimlerChrysler brands.

In addition to the traditional strengths in product quality and safety, design, and technology, DaimlerChrysler
is recognizing that customer service after the sale can differentiate the brand and build loyalty. At
DaimlerChrysler, that role falls primarily to the Customer Assistance Center (CAC), the contact point for
everything from roadside assistance and repairs, to questions about vehicle features, and even complaints
about dealer service.

Equipping for speed


Based in Maastricht, The Netherlands, the CAC serves customers of all DaimlerChrysler brands that are sold
in Europe, spanning some 17 countries and 12 languages. Nearly 700 agents field more than 250,000
incoming calls each month, supporting everything from 24-hour roadside assistance to product inquiries.

Says Tielemans, “The primary goal is to resolve the customer’s need or problem as swiftly as possible. The
customer who has broken down on the road, or the customer who has a difficulty with dealer service relies on
us to resolve the issue quickly. Being able to satisfy the customer promptly and expertly is a way of setting
DaimlerChrysler apart from other automakers.”

For Tielemans and his team, the overriding task is to equip the CAC agents with the tools and architecture
that helps them get customers rolling again in as little time as possible.

Better intelligence = faster service


One of the keys to accelerating response has been data capture and data warehousing. DaimlerChrysler
recognized that the more data they have about each customer, and the faster agents can access and act on
that “customer intelligence”, the more expeditious the service.
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To that end, DaimlerChrysler deployed computer-telephony technology to capture and retrieve information about
customers and their cars, as needed. On roadside assistance calls, for example, the CAC agents can now retrieve
all relevant data using the caller’s license number or vehicle identification number. “Instead of spending time
interviewing the customer for the particulars, the agent can get right to solving the customer’s problem.”

Picture a German customer whose car has broken down on a road trip through France. With one simple
question, “What is your license number?” the CAC agent can access the customer’s complete record in a matter
of seconds. Less talk time for the agent means faster resolution for the customer. In fact, DaimlerChrysler has
realized a 75 percent reduction in its average time spent with customers since agents have valuable customer
data instantly available with each call – effectively solving the customer’s issue in far less time.

Providing field intelligence for increased value


Tielemans has also equipped himself with the technology to create powerful reports covering critical
information about the real-world performance of vehicles from the DaimlerChrysler brands in the hands of
actual customers. If customers begin experiencing problems with a newly launched vehicle, the agents in
the CAC are usually the first to hear about it. The CAC is now in a position to capture and analyze this data,
forwarding it on to product development and/or manufacturing management – with the goal of providing
actionable information for improving the product. According to Tielemans, this “real time” intelligence has
dramatically shortened the times needed to diagnose problems, fix them and then integrate the necessary
changes into the manufacturing and development process.

Intelligent use of agents


In the CAC, Tielemans adopted an intelligent software application that routes calls to agents based on their
particular skills and expertise which enables customer to reach an agent 10 to 15 percent faster. Incoming
calls for roadside assistance or technical advice are directed to the agents best qualified to handle the issue.
But if these experts become fully occupied, the software proactively directs calls to other agents, rather
than keep callers in queue. This innovation helps Tielemans make the best use of all agents’ time, while
dynamically balancing the customers’ need for swift and expert service.

Extending the CAC to new markets


In addition to the main CAC in the Netherlands, Tielemans established a satellite center in Warsaw, Poland,
to serve the growing numbers of customers in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. For
DaimlerChrysler, this extension of the Maastricht center provided an economical and effective way to expand
the reach of its responsive service into these markets – with agents who could handle multiple local languages.
Armed with the flexibility of IP Telephony, Tielemans was able to launch the Warsaw center simply by extending
the communications infrastructure of the CAC to Poland. The bottom line: using IP-based innovations, the CAC
has achieved economies of scale while delivering on its branded customer service experience.

In the future
“Going forward,” says Tielemans “we are planning to enhance the way we communicate with our dealers and
resolve customer issues via a web-based application called Compass.” Instead of exchanging e-mails and
faxes with the CAC, dealers will be able to access technical information and customer issues online to speed
up problem resolution for customers.

Tielemans and his team are also offering a wireless-based application – Mobility for Technicians – that
provides mobile diagnostic and troubleshooting capabilities to roadside technicians via a handheld device.
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Finally, Tielemans will push the limits of speedy response with an application using interactive response
communications coupled with GPS tracking. The application allows for intelligent dispatch of roadside
technicians based on their actual estimated time of arrival, not merely their physical location.

“While other companies may produce fine automobiles,” says Tielemans, “here at DaimlerChrysler we provide
the best in automobiles and the best service for our customers. It’s all about creating brand loyalty with a
memorable customer experience. Which is all delivered by our Customer Assistance Center.”
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GREG ECKER, DIRECTOR OF CUSTOMER CARE


It takes no longer than sixty seconds of conversation to sense Greg Ecker’s zeal for customer
care; he seems to regard it as more of a mission than a mere corporate function. And like
other innovators in customer care, Greg’s conversation is focused on customers. Customers –
those living, breathing individuals with unique needs and personalities and perceptions.

In just three short years as Director of Customer Care for global appliance leader Whirlpool
Corporation, Greg Ecker managed a transformation of the Whirlpool customer contact
operations from ‘contact centers’ to ‘Customer eXperience Centers.’ He came to Whirlpool
in 2003 from Dallas-based EDS, a data services provider. It may sound like a vast leap from
corporate technology services to home appliance marketer, but as Greg sees it, the mission
is the same: “creating an experience for customers that is better than your competitors.”

REINVIGORATING CUSTOMER CARE TO CONTINUALLY DELIGHT CUSTOMERS


As the leading manufacturer in the global home appliance industry, Whirlpool owns an enviable franchise
that includes such well-known brands as Whirlpool, KitchenAid, and Gladiator, along with a portfolio of
international brands including Bauknecht, Brastemp and Cousul. The company also added the Maytag, Jenn-
Air and Amana brands to its portfolio with its acquisition of Maytag Corporation on March 31, 2006.

But even with its leadership position, Whirlpool feels the pressure of competition from competitors all over the
world, each with its own particular approach to product features and functionality. Says Ecker, “The marketplace
is changing. There are more global appliance manufacturers out there today, such as Samsung, Siemens,
Bosch, LG and others. The consumer options are more plentiful and some of those manufacturers bring distinct
strengths based on their roots.” For example, Asian competitors have an electronics heritage, making electronics
a more critical component in appliances. “It is no longer all about a dial, a transmission and a belt,” says Ecker.
“Products are more complex these days, which makes them more challenging to support.”

Whirlpool quickly recognized it was imperative to set itself apart from the ‘sea of white’ – that dizzying
array of appliance choices on the showroom floor, where all brands and models seem to blend together. The
company’s focus on innovation helped it stand out from competitors with products like the Whirlpool brand
Duet washer and dryer.

Whirlpool also was challenged by rising manufacturing costs. “The last two years have been tough for this
industry because the cost of raw materials (petroleum and metal-based products, steel, copper and plastic)
have been at an all-time high,” says Ecker. Whirlpool addressed the issue head-on by focusing on reducing
costs, while maintaining quality and customer service.
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“Cost and quality is not an ‘either/or’ discussion, it is an ‘and’ discussion,” explains Ecker. “The mission is to
take out costs, drive up productivity, and improve care for the customer at the same time. And that involves
an integrated effort.”

For Whirlpool, the overall strategy is a continual move toward a more “customer-centered company” in which every-
thing revolves around the consumer and improving his or her experience with Whirlpool and its family of brands.

Segmenting customers
To better understand the needs of consumers, Whirlpool began by analyzing its customer base brand-by-brand,
to gain insights into what was important to them, and how they wanted to be served.

For each brand, consumers were defined through some 27 attributes and assigned a “personality profile.”
That understanding has shaped virtually everything Whirlpool has done as a business, from its products and
service to its technology, and of course, its approach to creating a unique customer experience for each of its
unique customer segments – which fell to its Customer eXperience Centers.

“The Whirlpool brand ‘Active Balancers’ are more concerned about time and efficiency, about being productive,”
explains Ecker. “So for those customers, the experience is about ‘empowering and enabling.’ In customer care,
we focus on providing a self-service channel that will get her answers quickly. She is more likely to call about a
specific product, for example, and ask to talk to a laundry specialist about load sizes and features.”

“On the other hand, our KitchenAid ‘Home Enthusiasts’ are more focused on the relationship, and less on
the specific technology. They are more likely to purchase an entire kitchen and generally want to talk about a
variety of products.”

Different brands, different experiences


Armed with customer attributes and needs for the individual brands, Whirlpool is evolving each Customer
eXperience Center using a different model.

Says Ecker, “To serve the Whirlpool brand ‘Active Balancer’ we are making the experience more product-
aligned, and offering more automated self-service capabilities. For the KitchenAid ‘Home Enthusiasts’ we are
building more of a one-stop ‘relationship’ experience that crosses all product categories.”

To schedule service calls, for example, the Whirlpool Customer eXperience Center offers the Active Balancer
an efficient automated speech application that she can access 24-hours a day and schedule service on her
own time. On the other hand, the KitchenAid Home Enthusiast typically prefers to speak with a representative
to handle that same task.

In the past, depending on the nature of the call, a customer could possibly be transferred several times to
different agents in different locations in order to answer all of her or his questions or solve an issue. Now,
with the Whirlpool one-stop-shop approach, the Customer eXperience Centers are eliminating all unnecessary
transfers and taking care of the customer’s needs with one call. In the first year alone, Whirlpool was able to
eliminate more than 500,000 unnecessary transfers by directing each consumer to the representative best-
equipped to serve her or his needs.

Whirlpool also has invested in the technology and applications to offer its consumers additional services. For
example, when a KitchenAid Home Enthusiast is speaking to an agent about a refrigerator use and care issue,
and it’s determined that the solution is to change the water filter, the customer can now order a replacement
COMMUNICATIONS
AT THE HEART OF BUSINESS

14
filter on the spot. “It’s not about ‘selling’ filters at all,” says Ecker “but about providing the kind of holistic
personal service the Home Enthusiast is looking for.”

With its self-service applications, Whirlpool allows more than 10 percent of its consumer experiences to be
managed by consumers, on their own terms. As a result, operating costs have been reduced by more than 11
percent, while significant investments in technologies have delivered new efficiencies and capabilities. Over
the last 12 months, customer quality scores rose more than five points.

In addition to supporting the individual brand strategies, the company has invested in tools that allow it to
capture detailed information from its customer interactions and share it with other parts of the organization to
aid in improving its products and services. For example, by carefully tracking issues that may cause customer
problems and relaying this information to the technical and engineering organizations, the call center
representatives provide invaluable insights that help refine product designs.

“Whirlpool identifies the issue and works to solve it quickly,” says Ecker, “We also stand behind the work that
goes into our products.”

Future plans
Whirlpool also is looking into ways to help its agents make better decisions about specific customer situations.
“For cases where we might want to do something additional for a customer,” says Ecker, “we are developing a
‘dashboard’ that shows the agent what products the customer has purchased, what problems she has had. The
dashboard then helps the agent make a better decision. We want to differentiate and delight when appropriate.”

With a firm foundation of customer segmentation knowledge in place, Whirlpool is able to take a closer look at
how to offer additional, premium services for its customers to further differentiate the customer experience for
each segment.

Finally, Whirlpool plans to expand its self-service capabilities to include additional services like scheduling service
online, trouble-shooting problems and helping consumers find the right appliance for their individual needs.

Most critical observations


As Greg Ecker sees it, to successfully create that unique customer experience, one must transform the way
customer care is delivered, starting in the contact center operations.

• Align your customer care strategy with the corporate brand strategy. Decide and define what experience you
would like customers to have when dealing with your company. The experience must align with what your
brand stands for in the marketplace.

• Engage employees to foster the right change and transformations. Take polls and surveys. Listen to
feedback from the front lines. Get buy-in and consensus at all levels within the company.

• Look externally to benchmark other organizations that are already doing what you would like to do.

• Innovate at all levels – with technology, with people and in processes. To create a different experience, you
must make changes the customer will notice.

“Finally, don’t lose sight of the customer and the reasons behind this transformation” says Ecker. “Always ask
yourself if you are making the change just for the sake of change or if it is truly impacting the way you serve
the customer.”
avaya.com

15
BEST PRACTICES

Shaping the customer experience to win


From these discussions, it’s clear that companies are relying on customer care more than ever to create a
branded customer experience, delivering on business strategies that give them a competitive edge. Even
across industries and the world, while specific tactics may differ, technology investments are being made in
customer care operations to continuously refine and make the “ideal” customer experience a reality. And,
as referenced earlier, executives on the Avaya Customer Contact Council have also recognized that customer
service operations and their constant contact with customers can play a major role in creating this branded
customer experience.

The five, next-generation practices that leading companies are using to transform the customer experience include:

• Virtual Infrastructure. The virtual infrastructure is a core enabler and will continue to evolve as the
foundation for advanced practices that impact the customer experience. With a virtual infrastructure,
companies are able to distribute customer contact communications while centralizing control. The
advanced virtual infrastructure is a single, enterprise-wide infrastructure – and connected business
processes – that enable a single global queue. Resources can be accessed on demand, regardless of
location. Benefits of a virtual infrastructure include cost control (consolidation of many, separate contact
centers into a single virtual contact center); global sourcing (move and/or source people globally); and the
customer experience (implement customer interaction practices quickly).

• Channel Integration. In the quest to provide a holistic customer experience, leading companies are
integrating customer interactions and information across multiple channels of communication (e.g., voice,
Web, e-mail, chat, etc.) and points of customer contact (e.g., contact centers, field agents, branch offices,
ATMs, kiosks, etc.). The advanced level of integration (and ultimate goal) is to have seamless movement
across all channels, a universal customer ID, and real time, multi-channel reporting.

• Enhanced Self-Service. Just as companies are working to integrate across channels, they are also working
to provide better self-service within these channels. Natural speech will be a key element of the next-
generation customer experience – a major factor being the proliferation of cell phones and the need
for business people to conduct business while commuting. Natural speech is a not a panacea. Leading
companies with advanced self-service will match the type and level of self-service to the complexity of the
product, customers’ preferences, and the lifetime value of the customer.

• Differentiated Service. Matching the level of service to the lifetime value of the customer is a key practice
of the next-generation customer experience, regardless of the channel employed. Leading companies will
move beyond agent productivity and focus on the ability to manage agents for high-quality interactions with
customers. At the advanced level, predictive analytics will determine the potential value of the customer,
and routing will be done based on agents’ performance at the moment.

• Expertise on Demand. The fifth practice will use advanced technologies to provide a distributed network
of expertise inside the enterprise, accessible to the agent who is working with a customer to resolve an
issue. Today, many companies have established internal teams of subject matter experts and/or developed
escalation processes to assist in customer problem resolution. While collaboration has been achieved in
many companies, the advanced level will achieve an integration of the contact center with the rest of the
organization where every employee is a potential resource for impacting the customer experience.
Learn More:
For more information on how Avaya can help your enterprise create a branded customer experience, contact
your Avaya Client Executive or Authorized Avaya BusinessPartner, or visit www.avaya.com/contactcenters. To
read more about how other enterprises use Avaya Intelligent Communications, visit http://www1.avaya.com/pc/
ContactCenter_online_PC1.pdf.

About Avaya
Avaya enables businesses to achieve superior For businesses large and small, Avaya is a world
results by designing, building and managing their leader in secure, reliable IP telephony systems,
communications infrastructure and solutions. For communications applications and full life-cycle
over one million businesses worldwide, including services. Driving the convergence of embedded
more than 90 percent of the FORTUNE 500®, Avaya’s voice and data communications with business COMMUNICATIONS
embedded solutions help businesses enhance applications, Avaya is distinguished by its AT THE HEART OF BUSINESS

value, improve productivity and create competitive combination of comprehensive, world-class


advantage by allowing people to be more productive products and services. Avaya helps customers avaya.com
and create more intelligent processes that satisfy across the globe leverage existing and new
customers. networks to achieve superior business results.

© 2006 Avaya Inc.


All Rights Reserved. Avaya and the Avaya Logo are trademarks of Avaya Inc. and may be registered in
certain jurisdictions. All trademarks identified by the ®, SM or TM are registered trademarks, service marks
or trademarks, respectively, of Avaya Inc., with the exception of FORTUNE 500 which is a registered
trademark of Time Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
05/06

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