Elevating Customer Experience to the Next Level for a Major Consumer Electronics and Products Company - Finding innovative actions to improve ...
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Managed Business Process Services Executive Report Elevating Customer Experience to the Next Level for a Major Consumer Electronics and Products Company Finding innovative actions to improve customer service
Introduction
In the highly competitive Consumer Electronics
industry, hundreds of new products are launched in the market every month and millions of
consumers jump from brand to brand, buying what they believe to be the best product and best
value. With so many alternatives available to choose from, customer service can play a crucial role
in consumer loyalty and retention. A negative customer service experience can result in customer
loyalty falling by 50% or more and 90% percent of unhappy clients say they will never purchase
from the company again. To make matters worse, these disgruntled consumers will often share
their negative experiences with friends and family, magnifying the damage.
A leading consumer electronics and products company is constantly A Successful Partnership
striving to find innovative actions to improve customer service IBM and the company developed a new partnership to co-design an
without increasing operational costs. Already engaged in a business end-to-end CRM and customer service solution that would provide
process outsourcing deal with IBM, the company selected IBM to significant value to both companies. The company would outsource
drive a transformation plan to be a “best in class” customer service their contact center needs in North America for several key brands
operation, thereby further differentiating their top-flight products which comprise their consumer electronics and personal appliance
while optimizing their overall operational investment and costs. product portfolios. The contact centers resolve consumer inquiries
for general information, product features and capabilities, technical
support, product replacement, orders and exchanges. The centers
According to a recent benchmarking study of the provide service seven days per week with extended business hours.
Support channels include voice (inbound and outbound), white mail
top 12 competitors by the Consumer Electronics
(mailroom) and back office functions with language capabilities for
Association in 2008, the company ranked second English, Spanish, and French.
overall with 82 percent “completely satisfied
with action taken” and third overall in ranking The company’s primary objectives in seeking a customer service
outsourcing partner were two-fold: deliver superior customer
customers as “very satisfied with knowledge of experiences while simultaneously driving down operational
representative” costs. These high objectives were to be met with a “best in class”
operational model, improved processes, and call center and service
optimization. IBM participated heavily in determining the
Through the six-year (and counting) relationship, the company outsourcing strategies that would fulfill these objectives and was
and IBM successfully transformed many aspects of the company’s eventually chosen as the preferred vendor. IBM was the clear choice
customer experience, enabled leading edge self service options, in that they had the strategic purview to envision a new model,
deployed a new system of measurements, responded quickly and the operational expertise to get the job done right, and the global
adeptly to several market crises, and rebalanced the global delivery resources and infrastructure to deliver high quality service at a
strategy to meet business objectives. competitive price point. Perhaps most important in the selection of
IBM vs. other providers was IBM’s philosophy of delivery excellence,
2 Elevating Customer Experience to the Next Level for a Major Consumer Electronics and Products Company
meaning the deal had to be formed perfectly to meet business Remote Triage helped improve how service calls were prioritized and
objectives while being economically robust for both parties. reduced overall product repair costs. The impact to the company’s
business - and bottom line - became apparent very quickly.
The relationship started in April of 2004 with initial delivery
locations in Florida; Canada; and Southeast Asia deploying 300
FTEs. IBM took over “business as usual” operations immediately,
fulfilling customer service requests. Soon after the engagement
began, customer satisfaction scores jumped to leadership levels. After
consistently ranking outside of the Top 10 Consumer Electronics
companies in the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) yearly
ranking, the partnership with IBM support brought the company all
the way up to 3rd place in 2009.
Starting in 2008, IBM and the company responded to a series of
market changes. These and other company needs of transformation
initiatives were launched to improve the company’s customer service
experience while reducing costs. These included:
1. Simplicity Advantage Services, Remote Triage and eBooking. In addition to the projected $3M in annual savings in product repair
2. Re-design of the IVR System avoidance by performing more effective product triage through the
3. Implementation of NPS customer experience tracking model to call center, the company realized many benefits and improvements:
drive customer loyalty
4. Moving Offshore Customer Support Onshore • eBooking optimized the scheduling of in-home repairs by
5. Rapid Event-Driven Contact Center Deployment in Canada enabling call center agents to coordinate service appointments.
and Europe • The company saw measurable improvement on many significant
6. Transitioning New Products customer service metrics, including Customer SAT increasing
from low 70’s to mid 80’s, never before achieved at the
Each of these initiatives will be discussed in more detail below. company.
1. Simplicity Advantage Services, Remote The successful execution of these programs demonstrates the
company and IBM’s dedication and ability to drive change within
Triage and eBooking.
the business.
IBM and the company undertook some significant changes in how
consumers are handled, including instituting “Simplicity Advantage
Services”, remote triage, and eBooking. Each of these boosted the 2. Re-design of the IVR System
company’s brand and reputation, differentiating it from competitors. IBM and the company determined there was a significant
opportunity to improve customer value and improve advocacy
The company’s Simplicity Advantage program offered a compelling through re-designing the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system
new level of service for consumer electronics customers. Certain to address usability issues while complying with the complex call
customers automatically receive three key benefits of the Simplicity routing rules required by the business.
Advantage program: lifetime technical call-center support, prompt
scheduling of in-home warranty repairs where geographically Many of the results stemmed from a dramatically simplified IVR
available, and a simplified exchange program. system, which enables accurate routing of consumers to appropriately
skilled personnel by product. IBM engaged IVR and Cognitive
3
Psychologist experts, who were able to improve usability, while One powerful technique for understanding customer advocacy is
complying with the company’s business requirements, satisfying two the Net Promoter Score (NPS). More sophisticated than traditional
major goals. The redesigned system also created a streamlined and satisfaction or call center metrics, NPS provides a more accurate
more pleasant end-user experience and reinforced the company’s picture of how well service is meeting customer objectives, and more
commitment to its “Sense and Simplicity” vision, resulting in much specifically, how it is creating advocates out of the customer base.
calmer customers being delivered to the customer reps.
IBM was a great proponent of NPS, as IBM was proactively
The IVR changes dramatically reduced repeat calls, reduced IVR monitoring the service market. In 2008, IBM launched a NPS
minutes overall, reduced transfers from 40% to 2%, and reduced call pilot at the company and in 2009, the company and IBM engaged
abandons from 15% to less than 5%. in deploying the NPS program globally across all company
locations. The objectives of the program were to identify and deliver
“We’re thrilled to see the success the company has had as a business, exactly what customers value, when and where they need it at the
as a brand and as a partner with this solution. The company is now expected quality level. By doing so, the company and IBM were
a referencable IVR client for IBM and I don’t think there is a greater able to prioritize aspects of the customer experience, focusing and
compliment they can give us.” said Vanessa Michelini, Associate investing intently in areas the customer finds important, optimizing
Partner, CRM BTO Delivery. the interactions that were less important, and eliminating (or
minimizing) activities that do not add value in the customers’
3. Implementation of NPS customer eyes. Through this process, a new service strategy was devised that
improved customer advocacy at an optimized cost.
experience tracking model to drive
customer loyalty
Upon devising the strategy, IBM and the company developed a
Companies across the globe are reevaluating the tools and techniques
systematic approach to take certain actions. Now, our NPS scores
they use to understand customer desires and expectations and how to
have consistently shown a high level of performance, exceeding goals
act on them. The better a company can do this, the more likely they
in 17 out of 19 months. According to a recent benchmarking study
will build customer advocates or customer promoters. Customer
of the top 12 competitors by the Consumer Electronics Association
advocates are the best customers: they typically buy more products,
in 2008, the company ranked second overall with 82 percent
stay loyal to the brand, are less sensitive to price fluctuations, and
“completely satisfied with action taken” and third overall in ranking
recommend products to others.
customers as “very satisfied with knowledge of representative”.
The NPS initiative highlights the company’s and IBM’s appetite and
capacity to address customer experience challenges in new ways,
looking beyond the day-to-day operational needs to truly provide a
strategic insight into the advocacy of the company’s customer base.
4. Moving Offshore Customer Support
Onshore
The company had determined that they would meet their customer
objectives better by transitioning a service center located in
Southeast Asia to a U.S. Midwestern city. Most impressively, the
center remained “cost neutral” despite being moved from what was
considered a lower cost market to a higher quality onshore center.4 Elevating Customer Experience to the Next Level for a Major Consumer Electronics and Products Company
The shift enabled many new benefits and was cheered as ‘eventless’ in August 2008. Generally, the team was in an emergency mode,
its transition, meaning that there was no interruption in the eyes of working at extremely fast paces and needing results immediately.
the company’s business leaders or customers.
The company and IBM jumped into duty quickly to create a call
The project lifecycle took 75 days from LOA sign to the first “Go center solution to handle consumer calls for BPA bottle exchanges. A
Live” resulting in 100% “Go Live” success for 186 agents across bilingual call center solution was implemented within three business
three phased training waves. IBM executed a successful on-time days and launched in Canada. Achievements included:
transition, decommissioning two sites in parallel while launching
Midwest operations from the ground up. Exceeding expectations, • Team of 45 agents were onboarded and trained via creative
IBM was able to decommission the Southeast Asia site two weeks resource strategies and relationships
ahead of transition schedule. The company’s site in Florida was • Provided bilingual support for English and French consumers
decommissioned on schedule with the transition plan. • Enablement of tools, process, telephony and reporting
• Within a few days of implementation, team was handling
The new center met and exceeded customer experience expectations. 3000+ calls per day, far exceeding initial forecasted volumes.
After just two weeks of being operational in the Midwest, an NPS
score increase of 39% above target was achieved and sustained The metrics for the three-month effort are shown below:
(25% achieved vs. 18% target). Critical metrics for Average Speed Month Calls Offered
to Answer, Call Abandonment, First Time Resolution and Remote
May 51,005
Resolution were met or exceeded during the first three months of
June 11,273
transition. One company executive overseeing the project stated
“This was the smoothest transition ever.” July 1,083
In 2009, a coffee maker recall had the company reaching out to
5. Rapid Event-Driven Contact Center
IBM for quick support. IBM set up product recall support to the
Deployment in Canada and Europe company’s customers within three weeks for six countries in the
A potential issue was identified by Health Canada in regards to the
European market. IBM was able to staff and train 900+ agents
chemical Bisphenol A (BPA), which had been used in older baby
servicing customers in six different languages. IBM executed this
bottles in the company’s popular infant product line. The company
four-month engagement to meet government guidelines in all
ran a campaign to replace all older baby bottles containing BPA for
countries.
newer BPA-free bottles for Canadian consumers from May through
IBM provided Inbound, Outbound, e-mail and white-mail support
to ensure maximum consumer communication and pro-active
consumer resolution. IBM’s approach allowed the company to be
able to quickly get the message to the consumer and comprehensively
respond to their customers during a difficult product recall
campaign. By leveraging existing management resources and specific
product knowledge, the company knew that IBM services would
speed transition and ensure positive customer satisfaction and
continued brand loyalty.
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of both efforts was how IBM
could enable speed and agility to a traditionally infrastructure- and
time-intensive activity.5 6. Transitioning New Products The company had determined that they would transition the servicing of key products previously handled in house, to the U.S. Midwest center. The project started in November 2009, with a mere four weeks to get the center up and running by the December 14th launch date. This also coincided with the peak holiday season, both increasing the level of capacity needed and raising the relative risk level overall. Transition plans included development and documentation of business processes, telephony migration and application updates. IBM and the company worked together to use company training materials and delivered initial product and process training. Successful transition of the center happened on schedule and as needed. Overall, the NPS showed very quick and positive improvements, showing a 36% improvement from December performance of 14% to finish March at 50%. In Closing The company and IBM’s six-year history in managing North American service has already provided a rich track of experiences and success stories that have helped both companies grow and thrive. As a look backwards, these case studies provide us with a demonstration of our mutual efforts, our ability to collaborate, and our ability to roll up our sleeves and do a job well done. Looking forward, they set the stage for what we can achieve in the future, further improving the advocacy of the company amongst its customer base and further improving the operational prowess and efficiency that drives profitability for our firms.
© Copyright IBM Corporation 2010
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Produced in the United States of America
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