By IMImobile

IMImobile’s new ROI Calculator helps businesses estimate potential cost savings for their contact centre operations with proactive and reactive call deflection tactics.

As the world prepares itself for a new normal, it has become evident that digital communication channels are crucial for businesses now and for the future. Customers and businesses alike have witnessed how adapting to digital solutions has made it possible to maintain business continuity and stay relevant in these times.

Despite huge disruptions in service across all industries, contact centres are dealing with an unprecedented rise in customer enquiries. Some contact centres have seen  a 1000% jump in call volumes during the COVID-19 pandemic and agent capacity reduced by almost 20% due to remote working challenges. These trends invariably mean lengthy wait times and delayed issue resolution for customers which negatively impacts customer service. The added challenge of compounding costs associated with increased call volumes and retaining agents to handle inbound enquiries effectively is only causing further problems for contact centres.

So, how do businesses maintain customer satisfaction, increase contact centre efficiency and keep up agent productivity at the same time?

Call Deflection – Tactics for Success

While most companies have made the switch to digital channels or implemented self-service solutions as part of their contact centre strategies, they are struggling to capitalise in a way that translates to reduced call volumes and operational costs.

Implementing an effective call deflection strategy is one approach to streamlining contact centre operations. Customers are given the option to either self-serve through automated chatbots or resolve their enquiry with an agent at their own convenience via a digital messaging channel.

Proactive call deflection enables businesses to pre-empt customer needs and send timely updates or alerts on customers’ preferred channels to reduce the need for customer contact. This not only saves customer’s time but helps businesses communicate on more cost-efficient channels thereby saving agent hours, operational costs and delivering a positive customer experience.

Reactive call deflection allows the customer to switch to a digital messaging channel once they have already contacted a business. The IVR provides customers with an option to deflect inbound calls to a digital channel with customer consent and continue the conversation. This is a win-win for both customers and the contact centre. Customers get to resolve their enquiries using their preferred channel while agents are equipped to deal with multiple enquiries at once and interact with customers in a more efficient way. Digital channels such as WhatsApp Business are also more cost-effective than traditional voice channels.

Automation and self-service when combined with call deflection is another effective way of dealing with burgeoning call volumes. AI-powered chatbots can be deployed to become the first line of response for routine enquiries while seamlessly handing over calls to agents for more complex ones. Reports suggest that AI-powered chatbots can reduce call volumes by about 80%. Gartner further states that about 40% of today’s call volumes can be addressed through self-service.

Measuring Cost Benefits of Call Deflection – The ROI Calculator

Call deflection, both proactive and reactive, has significant benefits for improving contact centre efficiency, agent productivity and reducing operational costs. Businesses currently lack the necessary tools to measure the benefits tangibly and therefore implement the right solution for their contact centres.

The contact centre experts at IMImobile have designed an ROI calculator that enables businesses to calculate how much they could save by implementing a call deflection solution. The tool is customized to cater for contact centres of varied sizes ranging from those with 100 agents to 100,000 agents.

The ROI Calculator estimates the value generated from call deflection as a standalone solution or proactive/reactive call deflection in combination with self-service and automation. Businesses can discover the direct ROI for these solutions from call deflection within the IVR. The indirect ROI can be derived from the decrease in call volumes or increased contact centre capacity based on customers switching to digital channels to solve their enquiries.

The ROI calculator is a user-friendly tool with a simple interface that computes cost savings based on the following inputs:

• No. of voice calls per day
• Average annual compensation per agent
• Average call handling time
• Average hours per agent, per day
• No. of working days in a week

The tool’s calculations and cost saving estimates are based on industry standards and internal knowledge leveraged from IMImobile’s clients who have implemented call deflection strategies. With the right mix of metrics, industry best practices and internal data, the ROI Calculator is a robust and reliable tool that will be the first step towards building a cost-efficient contact centre strategy that enhances the overall customer experience. It will empower contact centres create solutions that reduce call volumes and costs, increase operational efficiency and provide support to amplify agent productivity.

Give IMImobile’s ROI Calculator a try today to see how an effective call deflection strategy can benefit your business. For more information about call deflection, take a look at IMImobile’s latest whitepaper that reveals the tactics for its successful implementation.

To know more about the ROI Calculator or customize estimates for your business, reach out to our experts.

IMImobile’s new white paper looks at how digital messaging channels enable proactive and reactive call deflection to reduce call volumes and improve customer satisfaction. 

For any customer, “we are experiencing a higher than normal call volume” is a phrase that causes frustration. It tells them they face a lengthy wait to have their questions answered and that the value they place on immediacy when it comes to customer service is not reflected by the business they are trying to contact.

While dealing with high volumes of inbound calls at peaks times has always been a challenge, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the scale of the problem for most businesses. This has been caused by a sharp rise in customer enquiries, staff shortages and a rapid shift to remote working. Businesses that previously managed voice-based contact well, now find themselves struggling, while those that had trouble before are now being crushed under the weight of calls they must answer, risking alienating their customers for life.

For most businesses, it isn’t simply a case of just hiring more contact centre staff, as they are already allocating large budgets to these operations. They have also invested in digital solutions to reduce the role of telephony and provide answers via the likes of FAQ pages and web-based self-service portals. However, despite their efforts, research by Gartner shows that they have failed to have a significant impact on the number of customer calls they must answer.

How can they remedy the situation to reduce call volumes and increase customer satisfaction?

Digital messaging – the new centre of customer help

WhatsApp and other messaging channels have seen an immense rise in usage across the globe during the lockdown. With their use at an all-time high and predicted to continue to grow, we have seen major players like Apple and Facebook establish themselves as platforms for messaging-based B2C interaction by launching new channels such as Apple Business Chat and WhatsApp Business.

Businesses are now increasingly switching their attention to these channels in order to automate enquiries through FAQ chatbots, proactively share information, organise a call-back, and enable agent chat. Messages can be uniquely laid out, include carousels and other rich media, and use multiple call-to-actions to guide users through the interaction.

These digital messaging channels are more cost-efficient than voice, enable agents to handle multiple enquiries at once and allow consumers to contact businesses in the same way they would communicate with their friends and family, at their own convenience. The use of digital messaging channels as a platform for self-service and agent interaction is an opportunity for businesses to reduce inbound call volume, provide answers quickly and increase customer satisfaction.

The role of proactive and reactive call deflection

Businesses can take a two-pronged strategy for deflecting and guiding customers to use digital messaging channels for customer service.

The first is reactive call deflection, which is about presenting a choice to the consumer at key customer service touchpoints. For example, when a customer calls the contact centre, their reason for calling is qualified through an IVR (Interactive Voice Response). When matched to certain types of enquiries, they are offered the chance to transfer to an alternative channel. If they say yes, they seamlessly move from the call to a digital messaging channel of their choice. From there, a chatbot can help them to resolve their enquiry or they can start chatting to an agent.

The second is proactive call deflection, which is about pre-empting customer queries and addressing them to remove the need to contact. Businesses can automate customer journeys that reach out to customers through digital messaging channels to communicate issues, provide service updates and offer follow-up actions to solve calls before they happen.

These can cover a wide range of use cases across the customer journey for every type of business. For example, airlines can send out disruption updates with options to book another flight, search for a hotel, or redeem compensation. Delivery companies can provide real-time updates about when a package is expected to be delivered, enabling customers to confirm they will be in, a “safe” drop off point, or that they will collect the parcel from a local shop. There are hundreds of different use cases where proactive engagement with customers can be combined with automated resolution to prevent calls into the contact centre.

Call Deflection: Tactics for Success white paper

To learn more about proactive and reaction call deflection, and how it can help to reduce call volume and improve the customer service experience, read IMImobile’s latest white paper.

It outlines how contact centres are able to deflect inbound calls and proactively communicate through messaging channels like WhatsApp Business, RCS and Apple Business Chat. These are the new generation of two-way messaging channels that enable customers to find the answers they need without calling the contact centre.

You can download a copy here.