Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Contact Centers
Mobility
Services
May 2006
avaya.com
CONTENTS
Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1
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INTRODUCTION
More and more companies see the customer experience as the way of differentiating
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
“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
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
The question was simple and direct: How are you creating a more compelling, more
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.
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.
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.
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.”
“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.”
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.”
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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 .
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.”
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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.”
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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.”
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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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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.”
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.”
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
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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.
• 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.”
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BEST PRACTICES
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.
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