expert opinion
EXPERT OPINION
Gerhard Heide, Global Market Strategy Director, Pitney Bowes
Gerhard Heide has nearly 20 years of experience advising many of the major B2C companies
across Europe and the US on a wide range of analytical methods and service delivery
technologies. He has delivered significant customer-centric solutions across many major
industry sectors, including finance, communications, utility, retail and the public sector. His
current focus is on CRM, business insight and social media. Heide has also worked in
statistics and queuing theory in collaboration with scientists at CERN and a number of
leading universities. He holds an MSc and a PhD in Mathematics from the University of East
Anglia. View the recording of a recent Engage Customer and Pitney Bowes webinar
presented by Heide “4 Next-Level Customer Engagement Strategies to Boost Contact
Centre Efficiency.” www.engagecustomer.com
an opportunity to deal with customers based on
their individual needs, in what can be a make-orbreak environment for a company.
Fewer staff defections, more
customer lifetime value
Research shows it’s making a difference on the
bottom line, too. According to a March 2014
survey from the Aberdeen Group, companies
with omni-channel customer experience
management systems (CEM) reported a 7.1
percent increase in annual customer retention
rates, while comparable firms that did not
showed an erosion of 4.9 percent within their
customer bases. Further, omni-channel CEM
users showed a 4 percent annual increase in the
lifetime value of these customers, compared to a
23.3 percent decline in client value across other
organisations.
An omni-channel platform may also help solve
another costly problem: how to keep contact
centre employees happier and more likely to
stay on board. Industry studies reflect the
notorious churn rate for this speciality: A 2013
Deloitte survey showed a 31 percent annual
attrition rate among call-centre operations with
more than 500 agents, and between 10 and 50
percent among those with 100 to 500 agents.
By empowering employees with tools that can
help them succeed - such as automated
recommendations to draw better results, easier
access to comprehensive customer data, and
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technology that makes interactions more
productive and pleasant - it can lessen
frustrations for them as well as for customers.
This also reduces the significant costs
associated with recruiting, hiring, and training
new staff. One industry estimate found the
benefits to be mutual: Along with a 5 to 20
percent hike in revenue from the new sales
opportunities afforded by the omni-channel
technologies, there was also a 2.5 to 10 percent
reduction in employee turnover within those
same companies.
Heide has been listening in on calls and seeing
omni-channel solutions in action at contact
centres in recent weeks and says he has been
impressed by the changes he’s witnessing.
“Almost every call was complicated. Nothing
was easy. Some of the callers where
threatening, talking of going to the press.
Nothing was as simple as 1-2-3, fill in a form it’s a lot of things to go through,” he said.
“Everyone was quite good. But in the past
they would usually finish their calls with ‘What
else can I help you with?’ - which is fine.”
says Heide.
“But it was lovely that now they were offering
specific help for other services that are relevant
to that particular customer, like would they like
to set up electronic payment plans, too? If
you’re a customer on such a call, where you feel
the organisation really understands you and your
needs, I think you have a better experience.”
www.pitneybowes.com
ISSUE SEVENTEEN • NOVEMBER 2014