Communication experts show the way to cut costs

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Communication experts show the way to cut costs – and keep the customer satisfied – just the ticket in tight economic times.

In the current economic climate every business wants to cut costs from their business. Two visiting specialists in the field of business communication say they can achieve this, and without the incumbent risks in terms of damage to the brand and potential alienation of customers that comes from failing to provide an excellent customer experience.

Doug Warner of global customer relationship management experts, RightNow® Technologies, and Michael Bishop, of Australasia’s leading provider of interactive speech managed services, SmartSpeak, contend that businesses can reduce the number of contacts handled by contact centres by as much as 50%, simply by helping customers find the information they are looking for faster and more efficiently.

“Most business websites and telephone systems are organised around the needs of the business owner, not the customer”, says Mr Warner.

As a result, consumers often become frustrated and seek out a live customer service agent to solve a problem that could have been solved much easier – and cheaper – if only the information being sought was easier to access.

One way to achieve this, Mr Warner contends, is by adding an intuitive ‘knowledge foundation’ to their website or telephone system. Customers can search the knowledge repository to find accurate answers much faster, removing the need for a live agent in a lot of cases. The technology ‘learns’ to answer based on the most commonly asked questions.

“Such approaches can eliminate 20-50% of emails and around 10% of phone calls a company receives, which can translate into a huge cost saving, which is particularly poignant at the current time as companies are looking at any way to drive cost out of their organisations”, Mr Warner contends.

Live Chat sessions are another way that can potentially drive down the cost of customer service, despite the need for a live agent. Mr Warner quotes an example where RightNow was able to significantly cut costs for a customer by using Live Chat instead of exchanging several emails.

While Live Chat cost around NZ$9 per session compared to just NZ$5 for email, the costs for email were higher in the long run because chat exchanges only took one session, whereas emails typically took three, making the cost of chat 40% cheaper overall.

And customers are happier too, a critical factor given that a survey conducted by RightNow in Australia and New Zealand last year found that out of 1000 people aged 18-65, around two thirds had stopped doing business with at least one company because of a bad customer service experience. The survey found that even having your leg or back waxed was preferable over receiving poor service!

Mr Bishop contends that technologies such as speech recognition also represent a significant opportunity to reduce costs for New Zealand businesses. Unfortunately, in his view, most New Zealand businesses that currently use this technology simply present a limited menu of pre-set options – rather like an interactive voice response system (IVR) with a voice.

The fact is that the latest speech recognition technology is able to manage complex calls, ensuring that only the most complicated calls – potentially the most valuable – end up been answered by a live agent. Many basic calls can be diverted from the contact centre and be managed quickly and effectively utilising automated voice-based technology.

Mr Bishop cites recent experience in Victoria where the AFL successfully handled 80% of the 3000 calls per week it received during the finals series from fans seeking tickets and clarification of the details of the final matches.

Messrs Bishop and Warner will be in New Zealand as guests of New Zealand communications management company, Datamail, in early March. They will be conducting industry workshops in Auckland and Wellington.

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