cmiq 2013 - multi-channel report

EXECUTIVE REPORT

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Executive Summary

TABLE OF CONTENTS

When one encounters a buzzword enough, heis sure to experience fatigue, frustration andperhaps even resentment. But no matter hisemotional exasperation, one’s best efforts tosilence the trumpeting of a trend will provefutile if that trend represents a new way of life.

The jury is still out on the question of whethermulti-channel represents a new way of life, butwith organizations devoting countless dollarsand even more resources to the pursuit of amulti-channel experience, one is not going toreadily find shelter from the storm of thatbuzzword.

But is an inability to escape the genesis of apropensity to embrace?

This past May, Customer Management IQengaged an audience of contact center,customer service, IT and marketing professionalsto determine the extent to which theirbusinesses are adapting to this so-called multi-channel world. Insofar as the surveyed samplerepresents an audience of those without anypretense of ignorance towards the conceptualexistence of multi-channel, this endeavor aimedto prove the extent to which knowledge—andpotentially support—of the notion is translatinginto action.

For as ubiquitous as the terminology andabstract concept might be, its interpretation asa best practice is anything but. Essential to theexploration, therefore, was an effort tobenchmark how the customer managementprofessionals are defining and driving the ideaof multi-channel.

To which business functions is it most relevant?Does it reflect a form of aligning andintegrating the existing contact center or a

strategy of increasing the channels in whichorganizations communicate with theircustomers, supporters and audience members?Is the definition a hybrid of the two; or,alternatively, does it refer to a completelydifferent customer management philosophy?

And to the extent that customer managementstrategy and execution exist not in vacuums butas part of a chain that could include numerousparticipants but always at least two—theorganization and its audience—how dodefinitions, implementation practices andperceptions differ among the diverse membersof the chain?

An essential step in the process, conceptuallyunpacking multi-channel only represents thebeginning of an analysis. Once it can either benarrowed down to a specific, one-size-fits-allcustomer management framework or acceptedas one that will look considerably differentacross organizations, it then must be gradedagainst a palette of acceptances, actions,measurements, planned investments andrecognized limitations.

Once a business internalizes a particulardefinition of multi-channel and thus uniformsitself with a call-to-action, what steps does ittake? What does it do in the short-term, andwhat can it keep on the backburner? Howsuccessful can—and should—it be during thisimplementation process? If the answer to thatquestion is not “infinite,” then what is standingin the way?

The customer management communityrecognizes multi-channel as a term. This reportaims to reveal the extent to which it is abusiness reality.

Findings ....................................................5

Methodology, Demographics andBackground............................................6

Understanding the Multi-Channel World ......................7

Reduction of Satisfaction......................................9

An inhibitive Definition ..............11

“Owning” the Multi-Channel Experience ..........................................14

Call to Multi-Channel Action ......................................................17

Putting Promise into Practice ......................................20

Conclusion – Multi-Channel is About the Customer....................22

Executive Report on Multi-Channel Customer ManagementAdapting to a Need for Adoption, Integration

2 customermanagementiq.com

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Chris Ezekiel has a technical, sales and marketing background. He has beenworking in the world of virtual assistants since 2000 and founded CreativeVirtual in November 2003. Prior to this, Chris worked for a US softwarecompany in various roles (starting as a Software Engineer, then as R&Dmanager and then as Sales & Marketing Director). Employing his technicaland entrepreneurial skills, and through the development of the enterpriselevel V-Person™ technology, he has established Creative Virtual as one ofthe world's leading providers of virtual assistants. He has a passion forcreativity, innovation, technology and physics (now you know why CreativeVirtual’s V-Person is called Quark!), and in his spare time enjoys skiing andsnowboarding, and watching his beloved West Ham (where his optimisticnature is sometimes stretched to the limit!).

Ryan Hollenbeck serves as Senior Vice President of Marketing for Verint® Systems, the market leader in enterprise intelligence and securityintelligence solutions. In his position, he is responsible for global marketing,including corporate marketing, marketing operations and programs,solutions marketing, marketing communications and sales enablement. He also drives the Verint customer experience management initiative forenterprise markets.

With more than 20 years of experience in technology marketing,Hollenbeck brings a wealth of experience in positioning, launching andbuilding markets for software and IT solution providers. During his 10 yeartenure with Witness Systems—which in 2007 combined with Verint—heserved as vice president of corporate marketing and investor relations. Priorto joining the organization, he held management and leadership positions withDun & Bradstreet Software, Prentice Hall Professional Software and CrescentCommunications (now Ketchum Worldwide). Hollenbeck holds a Bachelor ofJournalism degree with an economics minor from Oregon State University.

Madelyn joined inContact in 2010. Madelyn has worked for Fortune 50 firmsto small startups, including Sprint, Hallmark Cards, and H&R Block. Duringthat time she’s worked in Marketing, Product, Sales, and Operations.Madelyn has worked in and managed teams in blended call centers atHallmark and Sprint.

Chris EzekielFounder & CEOCreative Virtual Ltd

Madelyn GengelbachDirector, MarketIntelligenceinContact

Ryan HollenbeckSenior Vice President of MarketingVerint® Systems

Contributors


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Ian Jacobs helps craft the vision and messages for Genesys’ customerexperience products. These include Genesys’ voice channels, as well as newer digital channels, including social, Web, email and mobile products andsolutions. He explores the intersection of technology, culture and process, aswell as the ways consumers embrace and live with new channels. With thismandate, he helps define the direction for future Genesys solutions.

Ian speaks regularly to customers, prospects, partners, press, and analystsabout best practices and trends in customer care.

Prior to joining Genesys, Ian held several senior-level analyst positions in thecontact center and CRM space. Most recently, he was a principal analyst atOvum spearheading an effort to focus on business benefits and drivers forcustomer interaction technologies. He brings with him 20 years’ experienceas a marketer, journalist, and analyst in the enterprise software market.

Ken Osborn is the Senior Director of Product Marketing for Oracle’sCustomer Experience applications, focusing on modern contact centerapplications. He has more than seventeen years of experience in customerservice applications, including cloud computing, CRM and Enterprisesoftware. Previously, Ken was Vice President of Marketing for Five9,responsible for all facets of marketing. Ken was also at salesforce.com,where he led marketing efforts for the Service Cloud, substantially growingthe market awareness of the advantages of cloud computing for CustomerService and Support organizations. Finally, Ken spent a number of years atSAP in Product Marketing and Product Management leadership roles.

John Purcell is Director of Customer Care Products at LogMeIn, Inc. In thisrole, he is responsible for growing the Customer Care business by shapingvision, solution strategy and product direction. John’s team createsapplication user experiences that delight customer care agents andempower them to fully satisfy customers.

John has developed deep, hands-on experience solving customer supportproblems and frequently shares his insights via speaking engagements atindustry events held by orgainzations such as the Help Desk Institute (HDI)and Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA). In doing so, he helpscompanies evolve their support organizations in order to overcome newchallenges and capitalize on fresh opportunities.

More specifically, John was one of the first in the industry to discuss howsocial media and the proliferation of smartphones, tablets and other mobiledevices are critical new factors in the customer exerience. He often adviseson how to integrate social, chat and support technologies to create aproactive customer management approach, which results in happier andmore loyal customers.

Prior to joining LogMeIn, John spent 12 years in the mobiletelecommunications industry, and held senior technology, sales, and businessdevelopment roles at LogicaCMG (now Acision) and Red Bend Software.

Ian JacobsCustomer ExperienceEvangelistGenesys

Ken OsbornSenior Director ofProduct MarketingOracle

John PurcellDirector, Customer CareProductsLogMeIn

Contributors


Based on the simplest possible conception—communicating with customers in more thanone medium—nearly 88% of organizations are“multi-channel.” But when it comes toactually delivering a quality customerexperience across channels, phone continuesto reign supreme.

Asked how customers rate their experiences inup to nineteen different channels on a scale of1-5, only the traditional telephone supportwith a live agent scored over 4 (4.13). Theoverall average—a valuable indicator as to thecurrent state of multi-channel customermanagement—was just 2.90. Email, live chatand in-person represented the next-strongestoptions, while assorted options for text, videoand virtual agent communication serve as theweakest choices.

If that finding is disappointing from a statisticalstandpoint, it is certainly not surprising. Askedhow their organizations value customerexperiences in those nineteen channels,respondents provided an average score of only3.09. As with the question about customerfeedback, respondents ranked live phone,email, chat and in-person contact atop theheap.

That hierarchical value assessment manifests inmore than mere rhetoric. With little exception,respondents revealed that operational focus,evidenced by practices like abandon ratemeasurement and workflow forecasting,remains fixated on select channels, notablyphone, e-mail and live chat.

Despite modest status quo assessments ofservice via avenues like text (including text-to-call-back), video and virtual agents,respondents almost-universally recognize thebenefits of ramping up performance in thosechannels. Nearly 87% of respondents saidproviding text-to-call-back customer servicewould benefit their customers andorganizations; 84% shared the same viewregarding remote access, while 74% forecastimpact in adding video chat and virtualassistance to the customer service suites.

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FindingsThough nearly 60% see the merit in providingcustomer service via Facebook and Twitter,respondents believe their potential impact is inthe marketing realm. Nearly 80% ofrespondents believe marketing via the twonetworks will bring mutual benefit forcustomers and organizations; that supportlevel rises to 88% for LinkedIn.

Human interaction, however, remains thepreferred avenue for sales communication.63% of respondents felt that adding a saleseffort to live agent and in-person interactionswould bring mutual benefit to their customersand organizations.

Plans to act on this sentiment are decidedlyless universal. Despite articulating the benefitsof channels like text-to-call back, remoteaccess, video chat and live agents, considerablyless than 50% of respondents actually plan tooffer any form of communication in thosechannels over the next twelve months. Andthough a majority of respondents will offercommunication in channels like social andmobile, the population planning to engagecustomers in those channels is decidedly lessthan that which anticipates their benefits.

More evidence of that disparity betweenacknowledgement and action comes inresponse to the notion of customer channelpreference. Though 80% of respondents ratethe importance of engaging a customer in hispreferred channel at a 4/5 or 5/5 (and only 5%rank it at a 1/5 or 2/5), only 30% oforganizations can consistently do so. 21%percent never can.

Insofar as that customer preference mighthinge on the transaction, it is conceivable thata lengthier or more complex transaction mightmove across channels. Consistent with thatnotion, respondents ascribe significantimportance to cross-channel communication;89% believe it is at least somewhat importantfor customer and transactional data to beintegrated and shared across channels, while59% believe it is very important.

Only 30% are presently capable of doing so.


In May, June and July of 2013, CustomerManagement IQ conducted this research withcollaboration from an audience of customerservice, customer experience and contact centerprofessionals. Representing buy-sideorganizations, vendor organizations andindependent consultancies, respondentscontributed insights via a web survey and/ortargeted, one-on-one interviews.

Requests to participate were issued irrespectiveof company size, call center size or region,assuring that the sample represents a globalcustomer management audience.

Example job titles included “CEO,” “chiefmarketing officer,” “director of customerexperience,” “head of customer service,”“director of contact center,” “senior director,”“customer service manager” and “vice presidentof operations.” 22% of respondents identifiedthemselves as either vice presidents or C-levelexecutives, while an additional 40% identifiedthemselves as directors or managers in a contactcenter/customer service function. 6.5%reported their job functions as “consultants,”while just over 15% work in a marketing role.

Though industry representation was notconcentrated—twenty eight distinct industrieswere identified by respondents—it did skewslightly in favor of consulting, finance andoutsourcing. 12.9%, 10.8% and 9.7%represent those respective sectors.

Contact center size skewed towards the smallend, with the majority of respondentorganizations seating less than 50 agents intheir centers. Still, more than 25% seat at least250 agents, and 8.5% boast agent forces inexcess of 5000.

Customer Management IQ does not shareindividual response data with readers or reportunderwriters (sponsors), but 26.1% stilldeclined to provide insight into their annualbudget. An additional 19.6% said that theyare unaware of their annual spend.

Of those who did reveal their total annualbudgets, 10.9% confirmed a spend in the $100-500K range. 8.70% are spending between oneand five million, while 6.5% have a budget inthe $100-500M range (the same percentagespends $500K-1M). A total of 4.4% maintainannual budgets below $100,000, while 2.2%greenlight more than a billion dollars annually.

On-premise continues to be the preferredcontact center platform. 50% of respondentsrely on on-premise platforms, with 31.0%operating from a single site. Single- and multi-site cloud contact centers collectively serve28.6% of respondents, while 11.9% prefermulti-site hybrids between on-premise andhosted. Other hosted and hybrid contactcenters have minimal representation, while norespondent is currently reliant upon a single-site, hosted center.

The respondents, who are modestly tech-savvywithin their contact centers, show a particularpreference for knowledge management andvoice-over-IP solutions. 60.5% use eachsolution, enabling the two to rank as the mostpopular technology offerings by a considerablemargin. At 42.9% penetration, computer-telephony integration is the next most popular.

Going forward, process efficiency seems to bethe greatest driver of technology spend. Anadditional 55.3% of respondents plan to beginusing unified communications solutions in thenext twelve months, while 50% will invest inbusiness process management tools. Consistentwith the analytics push, 44.5% will begin usingCRM integration in the next year, while 34.2%will invest in Big Data solutions.

Sentiment for the latter is polarizing, however.While a considerable segment plans to invest inthe Big Data realm this year, an even largersegment (39.0%) is categorically ruling out suchan investment. Enthusiasm for screen capturesolutions is similarly limited; 38.1% say theyhave no plans to use them in the coming year.

Methodology,Demographics and Background


Multi-Channel:Conception #1

In its simplest sense,multi-channel refers tooffering communicationopportunities—defined,in this case, as thoseconcerning marketing,sales or customerservice efforts—inmultiple media.

Given that disconnect, a successful investigationinto multi-channel customer managementrequires an appreciation of context. What themedia says regarding multi-channel can differsignificantly from how end-user customersperceive the concept. That customerphilosophy can differ vastly from the B2C andB2B business perspective, whose owninterpretation might conflict that posed by theirvendors and service providers. Sifting throughthat chain of conflicting logic is thereforeessential for benchmarking where organizationsare and where they need to be on the multi-channel process cycle.

In its simplest sense, multi-channel refers tooffering communication opportunities—defined, in this case, as those concerningmarketing, sales or customer service efforts—inmultiple media.

Though the simultaneous rise of social andmobile has conflated the discussion, leadingmany to treat “multi-channel” as a synonym forsocial, the simplest conception of multi-channeldoes not mandate participation in any specificchannel.

An organization that communicates withcustomers via phone and email is, therefore, amulti-channel organization.

To the extent that businesses care about labels,that definition is valuable. Since solutionproviders generally advise businesses not toimmediately expand into every conceivablechannel—especially if they are not equipped tomeet high customer standards in thosechannels—businesses should not feel as if themulti-channel label is reserved for only thosewho are omni-channel.

Madelyn Gengelbach of InContact, for instance,recommends that businesses “start small” andfocus initially on adding one or two newchannels—typically email and/or phone—tocomplement their traditional live phone agentoffering.

“Our approach is a pragmatic approach,”explains Gengelbach. “I’m not talking aboutdoing it all at once; I’m talking about actuallybeginning the process. If this is what I can doright now, it may not be all the things mycustomers want, but it is a start.”

Aware that businesses can mistake multi-channel for a marketing campaign rather thanstrategy, Verint’s Ryan Hollenbeck similarlyencourages a pragmatic, methodical approach.

“You can’t do multi-channel customer serviceon the basis of wanting to market it. If you’renot prepared to respond appropriately and setservice level agreements you intend to respond,then you’re going to be in a real difficultsituation,” explains the executive.

Respondents will find affirmation in suchadvice. Though 87.5% communicate withcustomers in multiple channels, few provideenough connection options to justify an omni-channel label.

Of the nineteen options, live telephone agent isthe only communication method offeredunanimously by the respondents. Consistentwith Gengelbach’s rollout recommendation,email is the next most popular channel: only4% of respondents refrain from contactingcustomers in that pathway.

Commonly touted as a top business priority, customer service oftendegenerates into a battle between promise and practice. Terms like customerexperience and customer centricity are bandied about religiously, but suchenthusiasm does not consistently translate into action. Inactivity, driven eitherby actual limitations or fundamental indifference, often persists amid a cultureadvising the exact opposite.

Understanding the Multi-channel World


What percentage of your customercontacts are handled through thefollowing channels?

We don’t offer this channel

Less than 10%

11-20%

21-25%

26-30%

31-40%

41-50%

51-60%

61-75%

76-80%

81-85%

86-90%

91-100%

0 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Q1Twitter

Facebook

LinkedIn

Other social channels

Telephone (live agent)

Telephone (IVR self-service)

Email

Live Chat

Web self-service

Mobile app self-service

Text

Text to call-back

Click to call-back

Onsite representatives

Remote access

Video chat

Video demo

Virtual agents

FAQ pages

Other



If that is true, then theappropriate evaluationperspective is notwhether or not abusiness servescustomers in multiplechannels but whetherits channel offeringsalign with customerpreference

While the reduced standard of multi-channelprovides businesses with encouragement andaffirmation, it is not without negativeramifications.

Notably, it distances brand behavior fromcustomer sentiment.

Multi-channel might literally refer tocommunication in more than one medium, butcustomer appreciation for multi-channel is oftendecidedly different.

“There’s no question that customers are notonly asking for but anticipating multi-channelinteractions with companies,” notes CreativeVirtual’s Chris Ezekiel. “Customers also expectto engage using the communication method oftheir choice. Wherever they want you to be,that’s where you need to be.” LogMeIn’s JohnPurcell shares in that approach, noting that acustomer-centric philosophy and prescriptiveapproach to channel communication do not go-hand-in hand.

“We’re not prescriptive about using specificchannels. In fact, in keeping with our customer-centric philosophy, we firmly believe customerswill choose the channel(s) they prefer,” saysPurcell.

Executives like Ezekiel and Purcell do notdownplay the importance of getting thelogistics of a communication right beforeoffering it to customers, but they absolutelyrecognize that channel positioning is not astrictly-internal decision. When determiningwhere best to serve customers, it is the voice ofthe customer itself that serves as the best guide.

If that is true, then the appropriate evaluationperspective is not whether or not a businessserves customers in multiple channels butwhether its channel offerings align withcustomer preference.

The respondents agree.

Less than 5% dismiss the importance of servingcustomers in their preferred channel, indicativeof near-unanimous support for the concept.

Multi-channel customer management,according to the overwhelming majority, isabout more than engaging customers in amultitude of channels. It is about engagingthose customers in the right channels.

And though commentators like Hollenbeck andGengelbach stress the importance of amethodical approach to multi-channel customermanagement, they agree that the voice of thecustomer is integral to the process.

“Analyze your own customer base – what kindof model do you have,” asks Hollenbeck, beforeadvising, “Put the priority on the channelpreference that your customers have.”

For Gengelbach, businesses must adopt agradual approach to multi-channel specificallybecause they need to align their offerings withcustomer demand. If strategies andmeasurements are not carefully constructedaround customer feedback, the result will beunsatisfying interactions and unhappycustomers.

“You have to make it work for you so that youcan make it work for your customers,” cautionsthe InContact executive.

Building without consciousness of the customerbase—“not thinking from customer-in butcompany-out,” as Genesys’ Ian Jacobs puts it--isone of the major reasons multi-channelinitiatives are failing to take flight.

“There’s no question that customers are not only asking for but anticipatingmulti-channel interactions with companies,” notes Creative Virtual’s ChrisEzekiel. “Customers also expect to engage using the communication method of their choice. Wherever they want you to be, that’s where you need to be.”

Reduction of Satisfaction


Twitter

Facebook

LinkedIn




Email

Live Chat

Web self-service


Text

Text to call-back

Click to call-back


Remote access

Video chat

Video demo

Virtual agents

FAQ pages

Other

Highly Satisfied (Attendee Response %)

Ans

wer

Op

tions

0 1 2 3 4 5

Q2 How do your customers rate theirexperience with following channels intheir contacts with your organization?Rate only those channels your organization offers; 5 highly satisfied;1completely unsatisfied



Businesses mustrecognize the realitythat as interactionsbecome more complexand communicationforums become morevaried, that preferencecould span multiplechannels.

When it does, itbehooves organizationsto assure the customercan move betweenchannels withoutinterruption.

What is it about turning concept into action?Organizations recognize the need to be multi-channel, but, as the data shows, only a limitednumber are actually operating in channelsoutside the typical sphere of phone, email andlive chat.

When it comes to engaging customers in theirpreferred channels, support is similarlyunanimous. But, predictably, initiatives thatactually allow for that capability are far fromuniversal.

Though only 5% oppose such a practice—androughly 80% appreciate its clear value—only29.8% of organizations can consistently servecustomers in their preferred channels. 21.3%,meanwhile, outright dismiss their ability tomake good on that commitment.

While the percentages are not overwhelminglydiscouraging, they definitely do not befit thesupposed importance of honoring customerchannel preference.

Assuming this disparity is not the product ofutter disregard for customers, it signals theexistence of significant inhibitors in the multi-channel customer management process. Thestatus quo, clearly, does not support the optimalvision of multi-channel.

Respondents and contributing analystshighlighted a number of potential inhibitors,but the most notable is a business challengethat has long impacted all organizationalfunctions.

A clear roadblock to multi-channel customerservice, its relevance in this discussion isparticularly significant because it directly affectsa popular, alternative conception of multi-channel.

While multi-channel, in its simplest sense, refersto the provision of communication acrossnumerous media and, in a customer-centricsense, can refer to an ability to serve customersin their channels of choice, it also has anothermeaning: creating a seamless, cross-channelcustomer experience.

“When we are talking to our clients, they don’tthink that the simple idea of multi-channel isenough,” explains Genesys’ Jacobs. “It saysthat you’re doing multi-channel but not thatyou’re doing it in any consistent way. We areseeing leading companies take a cross-channelapproach, creating a seamless conversation withconsumers as they move from channel tochannel. There are no silos visible to thatcustomer and more importantly the context ofthe conversation is maintained across callchannels and interactions – customers to do nothave to repeat themselves and agents do nothave to ask the same questions over and over.”

With customer preference at least relevant tothe multi-channel discussion, if not its primarydriver, businesses must recognize the reality thatas interactions become more complex andcommunication forums become more varied,that preference could span multiple channels.

When it does, it behooves organizations toassure the customer can move betweenchannels without interruption.

“Customers are looking for a journey that spanschannels, and they do not want a disconnect inthat journey,” explains Oracle’s Ken Osborn.

Customers might be looking for that seamlessjourney, but they are certainly not receiving it inthe status quo.

Even though more than 88.6% of respondentsbelieve such cross-channel communication is atleast somewhat important—and 59.1% call it“very important”—only 30.2% are actuallymaking good on that directive in the status quo.

Crippled by isolation—both in management ofspecific channels and in broader businessfunctions—departments and their processeshave historically been bracketed into silos. Thissegmentation, which has historically andinfamously affected collaboration betweeninternal functions, is a recipe for disaster in anera of multi-channel customer care.

An Inhibitive DefinitionWhat is it about turning concept into action? Organizations recognize the needto be multi-channel, but, as the data shows, only a limited number are actuallyoperating in channels outside the typical sphere of phone, email and live chat.


Negative on face—how can a businesseffectively serve customers across a myriad ofchannels if those channels are not properlyintegrated—the silo dilemma is exacerbated bythe marketplace’s broader trends towardscustomer experience improvement.

As individual business segments and channelteams focus on optimizing their ownexperiences—or on adding new channels tomeet the simplistic demands of multi-channel—they only drive further wedges within theorganization.

“Companies even with the best of intentionscan kill the customer experience,” declaresGenesys’ Jacobs. “They optimize channels in asilo, and that can actually create a negativeeffect on other channels … even when they’readding channels, they’re starting to add them in

a very siloed way, leading to a very inconsistentexperience for consumers.”

This reality offers a damning view of theintuitive approach to multi-channel, whichsuggests that businesses should first establishthemselves as omni-channel enough to accountfor customer channel preferences and thenassure those channels are properlycommunicating. If cross-channel is wherebusinesses truly want to get—and this report’srespondents and contributing executives concurthat it is—it must come far earlier in the multi-channel lifecycle.

It, in fact, must define multi-channel because ifbusinesses optimize their channels independentlyof the cross-channel concern, they will onlyfurther inhibit the business’ ability to achieve thatflavor of communication and collaboration.

An Inhibitive Definition

Today’s organizations areexpected to connect withcustomers in numerouschannels, if not anyspecific channel a givencustomer prefers. Butoffering a variety ofchannels as options formarketing, sales andcustomer serviceconversations is only halfthe battle; a truly multi-channel experience isone in which customerscan seamlessly movefrom channel-to-channelwithout sacrificing servicequality in the process.

Chris Ezekiel, Creative Virtual – “What if somebody starts a conversation on one channeland wants to switch to another? Cross-channel interactions, we find, are becomingincreasingly important, especially within the banking, telecoms, travel and retail sectors.After companies recognize the value of multi-channel they need to ensure their channelstrategy encompasses the scenario of customers moving from one channel to another.”

Ian Jacobs, Genesys – “All [multi-channel communication] should appear seamless, justone face to the customer.”

Madelyn Gengelbach – “Once you get going, that type of silo approach to handlingmulti-channel will begin to be a burden.”

Ryan Hollenbeck, Verint – “Think about [the service experience] as [that of] one customerand one company.”

John Purcell, LogMeIn – “They’ll engage with you in several different ways before they’llpick up the phone. If we lose sight of who our customers are, beyond just gender, age,ethnicity, and home address, we miss the road-signs telling us what they expect, desire,need.”

Ken Osborn, Oracle – “Information must be consistent, you cannot have [agents]repeating information and preferences must be supported. I think that many companieshave taken the siloed view of channels, and this needs to be more coordinated.”

MULTI-CHANNEL: A CROSS-CHANNELEXPERIENCE

EXECUTIVE INSIGHTS:

*


(1=Not at all important; 5=Very important)

Q3

Q4

56% Attendees Ranked 5





40% Attendees said sometimes

30% Attendees said yes

21% Attendees said no

9% Attendees said I don’t know

Rate the importance in your personal/professionalopinion for the capability of delivering service salesor marketing offers via a channel that a customerstates or exhibits a preference for.

If a customer states or exhibits a preference for aparticular channel, is your organization capable ofdelivering service sales or marketing offers via thatchannel consistently?


“This is why peoplearen’t [developingintegrated multi-channel strategiesmore quickly],” saysthe executive. “If yousuddenly do it, you’remanaging changes todifferent processes,productivity andstaffing. Do you thinkthat their executivemanagement willallow them to notmeet that SLA? No – they’re notgoing to get a freepass on that!”

Support for channel integration is not, however, asimple process for most businesses. Thanks todebate over which department owns each channel,priorities will often be far too conflicted to allow forseamless integration.

Consider the social channel. Best practices articlesroutinely advise businesses to consider social mediafor customer care, but in the status quo, 50% ofbusinesses situate social in the marketingdepartment. And in cases where that marketingdepartment does not also own the contact centerand customer service wings of the business, thatownership classification will naturally serve tosegment social from the rest of the customerexperience.

“I think the challenge is that many companies aretaking the [segmented] approach to multi-channel,both from a channel perspective as well as anorganizational perspective,” says Oracle’s Osborn.“Marketing is investigating channels such as social,while customer service is trying to play catch-upwith the cross-channel perspective.”

And yet, for as detrimental as such segmentation ison the surface, professionals not only tolerate butactively encourage its continued existence.

Asked how they envision different channelsimpacting their businesses, respondentsdemonstrated an overtly bracketed mindset. Theysee social networks, for instance, as far morerelevant to the marketing function than to customerservice. Live chat and text, meanwhile, areperceived as far more valuable to service than salesand marketing aims.

It is not that they are wrong. Professionals areconditioned to follow a combination of results andintuition, and thus far, it is very likely that certainchannels have proven more useful for certainbusiness endeavors.

But one cannot ignore the presence of a self-fulfilling prophecy. As long as businesses continuebracketing different channels—and assigningownership and metrics in accordance with thosebrackets—channels are going to perform in differentways.

And though advising businesses to dismiss thosepreconceptions and view all channels as holisticcustomer engagement platforms seems easyenough on paper, transforming that directive intoaction is far more difficult.

In addition to preconceptions about how channelsperform, business leaders also maintainpreconceptions about how certain business

functions perform. They approach concepts likemarketing, sales and customer service withpreexisting metrics and predetermined ROIcalculation, and if different channels perform againstthose stock benchmarks in different ways, theycould raise false red flags.

That hurdle, in fact, is why InContact’s Gengelbachrecommends a gradual approach to multi-channel.

“This is why people aren’t [developing integratedmulti-channel strategies more quickly],” says theexecutive. “If you suddenly do it, you’re managingchanges to different processes, productivity andstaffing. Do you think that their executivemanagement will allow them to not meet that SLA?No – they’re not going to get a free pass on that!”

Insofar as functional professionals are morecomfortable showing the customer service ROI ofphone and e-mail channels and the marketing ROIof social channels, they, fearing ramifications forunderperforming against past benchmarks, willcontinue on their same courses. Even iftransforming a channel mindset is valuable in thelong run, professionals are driven to risk-aversion(and change-aversion) by fear that they cannotshow that value in the immediate term.

And if that is all a business will consider, there is nosimple fix. If the numerous cable and airlinecompanies have not flirted with the realm ofperfection after years of investment into socialcustomer support, why should an organizationwithout social customer care experience feelconfident in its ability to produce instant results?

If progress towards a legitimate multi-channelexperience is to be had, it must instead be driven bya renewed approach to the performancemeasurement.

“Traditionally, there have been different metrics forsales, marketing, etc.,” says Creative Virtual’sEzekiel. “But an interaction can do several things –it doesn’t have to be just sales or customer service.We can do multiple things with that customer if weapproach it in the right way. And that’s where thesystems integration becomes important. Once thetechnology is able to work seamlessly in this way,enabling interactions covering all aspects of thebusiness it then just becomes a natural extension forthese divisions to work closely together.”

Managers and front-line employees cannot beexpected to take an integrated, holistic approach toa channel if they are not completely confident thatthe executive rank is evaluating performance froman integrated, holistic standpoint.

“Owning” the Multi-Channel Experience


Q650% Marketing

23% Contact Center andMarketing share ownership

17% We don't have a social mediachannel presence

10% Contact Center

Q570% Attendees said no

30% Attendees said yes

(E.g., If a customer starts an order on the Web and needs agent assistance, can theagent immediately see the transaction history without having the customer repeat it?)

Are customer data and transaction data integratedand passed between channels and applications?

Who "owns" your organization's social media channel?


Marketing Sales Call Center/Customer Service

Q7

0 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

What channels do you think itwould benefit your organization andcustomers to add to your offeringsand in what functions

Twitter

Facebook

LinkedIn




Email

Live Chat

Web self-service


Text

Text to call-back

Click to call-back


Remote access

Video chat

Video demo

Virtual agents

FAQ pages

Other


If one instead definesmulti-channel as theability to communicatewith customers in theirpreferred medium, hemust recognize thereality that mostbusinesses cannotconsistently do so.That businesses almostuniversally want to doso makes that realityeven harder to swallow,as it means enoughinternal and externalinhibitors exist toprevent businessesfrom delivering on thepromises of customer-centricity theypersonally hold sacred.

If he defines multi-channel as the ongoingintroduction of new contact options for customers,he must point to the fact that many businessesremain fixated on a small number of channels.And regardless of whether they operate in two orfifteen channels, many of these businesses operatewith a strict, internally-driven sense of priority: theydevote the bulk of their effort, measuring andforecasting to only a handful of channels.

That reality is important. None of the thoughtleaders interviewed for this report advocate anurgent transition into omni-channel customer care,but the reason for curbing their rollout enthusiasmis acceptance of the notion that service must besuperb within each channel. That businesses arerefraining from expanding channel offerings yetnot even optimizing the channels they do offer is aseparate, more alarming reality.

If one instead defines multi-channel as the ability tocommunicate with customers in their preferredmedium, he must recognize the reality that mostbusinesses cannot consistently do so. Thatbusinesses almost universally want to do so makesthat reality even harder to swallow, as it meansenough internal and external inhibitors exist toprevent businesses from delivering on the promisesof customer-centricity they personally hold sacred.

And if one looks at multi-channel as an opportunityto secure seamless communication—andexperiences—across media, he has no choice butto condemn businesses for not getting that done.

The busting of silos, however clichéd in thebusiness world, has not made its way into theworld of customer management, and customerscontinue to bear the brunt of poor cross-channelcollaboration.

Short of any conceivable standard, multi-channel isnot as mature in execution as it is in executivediscussion. Swift, meaningful action is certainlynecessary.

But as businesses consider their steps for movingforward, it is important to position a firm objectiveatop the ladder. Ineffective multi-channel customermanagement is not inherently better than aninsufficient palette of channel offerings, andbusinesses therefore need to implement solutionsand strategies that drive them towards a verytangible, irrefutably-valuable end.

With a consensus that multi-channel incorporatesall three conceptions in its truest, most maturesense, businesses must begin working towardsthat end from the get-go. Relevant contact centerdecisions and investments must move towards anenvironment in which businesses are availableto communicate wherever customers couldconceivably want to communicate and wherever agiven customer needs to communicate regardinga given issue. Such communication must be fullycapable of delivering substance to the customer,and in the event that a given inquiry needs tospan channels, the transition should beunequivocally seamless.

Call To Multi-Channel Action


Common sense, survey data, anecdotal responses and solution provideranalysis collectively reveal that multi-channel is, at best, in its preliminary stages.No matter one’s personal conception of a multi-channel customer managementapproach, he would be hard-pressed to find universal adoption in today’smarketplace.

EXECUTIVE INSIGHTS:

No matter theframework, today’sorganizations are notmaking meaningfulgood on their multi-channel initiatives. Asthey strive for betterperformance—andbetter results—theyneed to more firmlyidentify their keyobjectives.

Chris Ezekiel, Creative Virtual – It’s much more than just about multiple channels. It’s about beingable to start in one channel and continue in another. It’s about accuracy and consistency. It’s thenabout actually attributing sales ROI to those interactions as well. The KPIs need to be about muchmore than customer service, they need to combine the metrics from all areas of the organization.”

Ian Jacobs, Genesys – “Success [takes the integration of teams. All of a sudden, you’ve got aphenomenal customer experience when you get departments working together, includingmarketing sales and service. It removes all of the frustration from the process, and solves your issuethe first time, right when you need it.”

Ken Osborn, Oracle – “It is the lack of imperative that is preventing action. I think the greatest ROIis to look at the ease with which customers will switch brands based on a poor customer experience.We found close to 86% of customers have already switched brands, and companies are losing up to20% of revenue in missed opportunities. Once the imperative is established, it should be easier toremove those obstacles around technology, organizations…In order to succeed, companies need toalign objectives across sales, marketing and service. They need to understand the connectedcustomer experience from buy to own, and they need to align their processes and objectives to thatexperience. Once this alignment has taken place, it should be much easier for companies to dealwith disruption in the future.”

Ryan Hollenbeck, Verint – “Analyze your own customer base – what kind of model do you have?Put the priority on the channel preference that your customers have. They will tell you.”

Madelyn Gengelbach, InContact – “Some companies use multiple different systems to, in effect,become multi-channel. Maybe they only have a voice-based ACD and are using a separate systemfor email and maybe another system for chat and another for social media. What we’re finding [is]that [while this] may be able to work for a little while, once you get going, that type of silo approachto handling multi-channel will begin to be a burden.”

John Purcell, LogMeIn – “The frustrating thing in the industry in general is that, in spite ofbelieving in the concepts of engaging with customers in the channels they choose, businesses arereluctant to invest.…It starts with buying into the notion that actually engaging with your customeron subjects of their choosing, at times they prefer, using channels they select, for as long as theywant to engage, is a good thing.”

OBJECTIVESFOR MULTI-CHANNELCUSTOMERMANAGEMENT

*

Respondent- “Consistency of delivery across all channels - each channel should have thesame offers, solutions and ability to resolve customer concerns.”

Respondent- “Consistently providing information that is best suited to the inquiry. Thentransitioning to another channel (including all the supporting information) if one channel isnot meeting the customer's needs.”

Respondent- “Make yourself available where the customer wants to connect with you.”

Respondent- “Customers expect a company to be able to provide service at any time,through any means, and that companies will have knowledge of these interactions and allrelevant information about the customer.”

Respondent- “Just offering many channels without "substance" behind [them] will leadto customer frustration.”


Yes No Don’t know

Q8

0 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Twitter

Facebook

LinkedIn




Email

Live Chat

Web self-service


Virtual agents

FAQ pages

Other

Text

Text to call-back

Click to call-back


Remote access

Video chat

Video demo

Are traffic and workload for the followingchannels included in your forecast?


If responses to the survey demonstrated nothingelse, they confirmed that the push towardslegitimate multi-channel customer managementis a legitimate one. Though it mightoccasionally be sensationalized by the media,the directive towards multi-channel is notfabricated.

And yet, for all the manners in whichprofessionals confirmed their interest in multi-channel—either by revealing how certainchannels are lacking, trumpeting a need toserve customers in their channels of choice ordiscussing the importance of cross-channelcommunication—few confirmed unequivocalsuccess in creating the optimal experience.Crippled by philosophical limitations, structurallimitations, budgetary limitations and customerdata limitations, many businesses remainstranded from the realm of meaningful multi-channel customer management. They areforced to focus on minimal, piecemealimprovements.

“This has much to do with the legacy view ofcustomer care – it’s a “cost center,” clarifiesLogMeIn’s John Purcell. “If we’re going toreally look at customer engagement as valuable,we have to look at it as a strategic investment,not something whose cost we have to bear. Ifwe can make that mental and strategictransition (and we are), we believe thatconcepts like multi-channel engagement will beunlocked.”

Insofar as cohesion seems to, universally,represent the most important ingredient, here-and-there modifications to contact channelstrategy are ill-advised. Businesses instead needto operate in accordance with a long-term,integrated plan. They still might act in spurts,but benefit will come from the fact that thoseisolated actions will align with the central vision.They will serve as enablers—rather thaninhibitors—to a stronger multi-channelexperience.

With the need for collaboration and alignmentso pronounced, one common recommendationis to umbrella the multi-channel process under acustomer experience or engagement function.

“Customers should create a customerexperience office and hire a CCO to correlateeverything and collaborate internally,” contendsVerint’s Hollenbeck. “[That office can] createthe right listening tools to understand what’shappening, share it at the executive level [and]also create first responder teams internally whocan share what’s actually happening to cross-functional [leadership].”

By filtering every element of the multi-channelprocess through the customer experiencefunction, businesses assure they are creating aunified, customer-centric vision for eachchannel. This will instantly remove a crushingroadblock to cross-channel communication andthus instantly position the business to betterengage customers.

Looping the multi-channel strategy under thecustomer experience function is not, however,a call to extricate marketing and sales from theprocess. It simply is a reminder that all decisionsaffecting the customer should be coordinatedwith the division responsible for knowing thecustomer.

“Of course there needs to be involvementfrom all areas of the business – technical,marketing, customer service,” clarifies CreativeVirtual’s Ezekiel. “But unless you also havesomeone responsible for customerengagement, you’re not going to understandwhat their requirements are in the multi-channel world.”

Because such issues are more readily remedied,the tendency to ascribe customer managementissues to human, strategic and philosophicalbottlenecks is a common one. It is not,however, a sufficient means of diagnosingmulti-channel challenges.

Technology plays an enormous part. Inpursuing stronger, multi-channel customerexperiences, many businesses are forced topatch new features onto their antiquatedsystems, which makes no guarantee of smooth,efficient integration between the affectedchannels and processes.

Oracle’s Osborn contends, “Technology is thebiggest inhibitor [to the multi-channel

Putting PromiseInto Practice

“This has much to dowith the legacy viewof customer care –it’s a “cost center,”clarifies LogMeIn’sJohn Purcell. “Ifwe’re going to reallylook at customerengagement asvaluable, we have tolook at it as astrategic investment,not something whosecost we have to bear.If we can make thatmental and strategictransition (and weare), we believe thatconcepts like multi-channel engagementwill be unlocked.”


experience]. As channel technologies wereintroduced – email, chat, voice self-service -companies released technologies individually toaddress all of those. Today, because cross-channel processes are much more critical, thetechnologies must allow for the seamlessintegration of process and information.”

And the process of seeking investing in pricynew technology, especially given the long-standing cost center stigma attached to thecustomer management function, is often anunappealing one for middle management.

“The fact of the matter is that when you dealwith any type of technology based on premisehardway or locally loaded software, you aredealing w/ business models that requireupgrades,” explains InContact’s Gengelbach.“They are capital expenditures, and updatesand changes [thus] tend to be less frequent onthe development cycle and the buying cycle.[These] capital expenditure[s] can create abarrier.”

Costly as such upgrades are, they might alsoprove ineffectual. Today’s customermanagement model requires an integratedapproach, and if a given platform is not capableof facilitating that integration, the impact ofupgrades will be significantly dampened.

Gengelbach notes, “One of the things that wesee as a real strength is to have a solution witha unified ability to route every channel on onecentralized platform. It’s better for agentproductivity, it’s better for measuring andmonitoring and it’s more efficient across thewhole enterprise. It’s all in one place.”

Because a cohesive, integrated system isessential, focusing only on the functionalitiesmissing from a legacy system is an improperapproach. Though it might enable a business todiagnose its current capabilities, it creates thepretense that closing those specific gaps willautomatically optimize the customer experience.

In reality, such optimization comes not frompatching an existing system but from thinkingabout how the different elements, processesand touch points of a system communicate withone another. The goal, when considering anyaddition or subtraction, is to assess how thechange will impact that communication.

“Take a step back and what technologicallywould make this feasible – there needs to be asystem where the context from interactions onone channel can then be used to impact theinteractions on those other channels,” offersGenesys’ Jacobs.

Rather than serving as a directive to ditch one’sexisting system and by something new, theadvice more notably encourages a revamped,holistic mindset for assessing the state of one’scustomer management systems.

The correct assessment requires a holistic viewof the organization and what it is trying toaccomplish. Once it understands who itscustomers are and how it intends to engagethem, it then must determine the appropriateplatform for following through on thatengagement plan. Technology is a tool ratherthan a strategy, and successful leaders evaluatetheir technology against that notion.

In adopting this holistic, solution-centricapproach, businesses will be able to not onlydetermine the appropriate contact centerplatform but also the appropriate platform(s) forinternal operations.

“You need a single platform with centralizedmanagement. That’s a real boon for ROI. It alsoallows you to play around with those levers. Ifwe improve this, are we actually hurting here,”explains Jacobs, adding, “There’s also thepeople side – some of that aided by technology.WFO tools to allow companies to take a look atall the skills and resources that they have andapply those in the best way. Companies canalso differentiate who handles the differenttypes of service at different times of day.”

Putting Promise Into Practice

Oracle’s Osborncontends, “Technologyis the biggest inhibitor[to the multi-channelexperience]. Aschannel technologieswere introduced –email, chat, voice self-service - companiesreleased technologiesindividually to addressall of those. Today,because cross-channel processes aremuch more critical,the technologies mustallow for the seamlessintegration of processand information.”

The correct assessment requires a holistic view of the organization and what itis trying to accomplish. Once it understands who its customers are and how itintends to engage them, it then must determine the appropriate platform forfollowing through on that engagement plan. Technology is a tool rather than astrategy, and successful leaders evaluate their technology against that notion.


Far more than advice for technology buyers,the directive to think about the holisticcustomer experience is the heart of drivingmulti-channel excellence.

In its simplest sense, multi-channel mattersbecause it can improve the manner in whichbusinesses understand, engage and retaincustomers. From channel additions, to processmapping, to metrics, to integration, a multi-channel process’ validity is affirmed or negatedby its impact on that broader customerexperience question.

Concepts like channel integration are notimportant because they are “best practices.”They are best practices because they areimportant to the customer experience.

“A classic example: after engaging in adifferent, self-service channel, in certain casesthe user might need to be passed over to a realperson,” offers Creative Virtual’s Ezekiel.“What you then want to do is pass a copy ofthe virtual conversation over to the real personso that the user doesn’t have to repeateverything.”

Ezekiel’s perspective is informed by legitimatecustomer need rather than by competitorstrategy or technology vendor sales copy. Andit reflects how thinking about the customer isthe safest, most successful way to assure abusiness’ multi-channel effort moves in theright direction.

Businesses—and business leaders—will attackthe multi-channel issue from a differentperspective. More so than any of her fellowreport contributors, InContact’s Gengelbachpushes for a gradual rollout process. Yet herguidance is every bit as customer-minded asthat of more aggressive multi-channeladvocates.

“Create those use-cases or thoseexperimentation points collaboratively withyour customers,” recommends Gengelbach,who notes that by building out the multi-channel effort through a methodical,

experimental process, businesses can bestunderstand how their customers areconsuming the new channels and what“hiccups” need to be remedied.

An advocate for the cross-channel approach,regardless of the number of channels beingmaintained, Genesys’ Jacobs ties hisrecommendation to customer effort, which israpidly emerging as a pivotal metric for thecustomer management function.

“[Companies were] optimizing for eachspecific function; now they’re starting to lookat customer effort,” says Jacobs. “It’s aboutmaking it easy for customers to do what theywant to do.”

Effective, seamless cross-channelcommunication certainly helps make thecustomer experience easier.

More than just trends, concepts like omni-channel service offerings and seamless cross-channel speak more accurately to marketplacereality than previous iterations of customermanagement.

It is why someone like Oracle’s Ken Osborncan ridicule the notion of treating multi-channel as an ideal. Multi-channel is anecessity; the unattainable ideal, he argues,would be attracting the kind of homogenouscustomer base that would not require multi-channel communication.

“Preferences vary by demographics,geography, and issues,” explains Osborn.“The only companies that can afford to ignorethe impact are those that have a 100%homogeneous customer base, with a very clearunderstanding of preference, and wellestablished expectations. That part of theequation is the idealistic part.”

And with that diverse customer base comes aneed for a versatile customer managementstrategy.

Conclusion – Multi-Channel IsAbout The Customer

“Multi-channel ispromising because itallows us torecognize that thebase is diverse, andbecoming moreindividualistic –society encouragesthat today more thanit ever has,” saysLogMeIn’s Purcell.


“Multi-channel is promising because it allowsus to recognize that the base is diverse, andbecoming more individualistic – societyencourages that today more than it ever has,”says LogMeIn’s Purcell.

If the key to the multi-channel question isdiverse customer sentiment, the need forquality customer feedback becomes morepronounced than ever.

“Don’t leave the recorded calls in the callcenter only,” advises Verint’s Hollenbeck.“Figure out what your customers are actuallysaying. Take that information back into a cross-functional team meeting and use VoC to drivecustomer experience excellence.”

That 80% see the merit in addressing customerswhere they want to be addressed but only 30%can consistently do so is alarming. That 90%see the merit in communicating customer dataacross channels but only 30% can consistentlydo so is troubling.

But if businesses consider taking action afterreading this report, it must not be because ofthe startling statistical disparities. If they trulywant to succeed with multi-channel customermanagement, their action must be driven byan alignment between the way their businessfunctions and the way their customers needthe business to function.

Multi-channel initiatives are to be determinedby customers, not by statistics, best practicearticles or technology pitches.

Conclusion – Multi-Channel Is About The Customer

“Don’t leave therecorded calls in thecall center only,”advises Verint’sHollenbeck. “Figureout what yourcustomers areactually saying. Takethat information backinto a cross-functionalteam meeting anduse VoC to drivecustomer experienceexcellence.”


COMING SOON: Multi-ChannelCustomer Management Summit

Prepare for a cutting-edge virtual experience, combining a facultyof the most battle-tested, insightful speakers in customermanagement (including the contributors from this report!) withthe most interactive online summit format imaginable.

Stay tuned for your exclusive, COMPLIMENTARY invitationto the Multi-Channel Customer Management Summit.

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