"Customer Analytics will play a big role in context-based architecture"

Conventional automated customer interaction involves playing a set of pre-defined prompts that takes all customers through the same call flow irrespective of their relationship or past interaction with the service provider. Context-based customer interactions adds some kind of ‘intelligence' to this process by making the call flow a lot more tuned to the customer's relationship or past interactions with the service provider, instead of playing a standard set of prompts. K. Balakrishnan, MD & CEO Servion walks Dataquest through the multi pronged impact of context based customer interaction and Servion's initiatives. Excerpts

What are the key trends shaping around context-based customer interaction and how it's different from conventional customer interaction?

Conventional automated customer interaction involves playing a set of pre-defined prompts that takes all customers through the same call flow irrespective of their relationship or past interaction with the service provider. Context-based customer interactions adds some kind of ‘intelligence' to this process by making the call flow a lot more tuned to the customer's relationshipor past interactions with the service provider, instead of playing a standard set of prompts.

For almost all of its life since its invention, IVRs (Interactive Voice Response Systems) have acted as ‘dumb' machines playing static prompts irrespective of the customer's association with the service provider. It also rarely took into account the past interactions the customer has had with the service provider when it plays the prompts. Context-based interactions change this basic paradigm by giving the customer options that are more tuned to his / her relationship with the service provider, taking into account any of his / her recent interactions.

What are the change management issues when company's transition to a context-based customer interaction - for instance that such a transformation requires a consolidated framework factoring in multiple channels?

Based on the query from the customer, conventional IVRs ‘interact' with various systems (databases, CRM, middleware, core banking solution, and billing solution) on a need basis. In the case of context-based customer interaction, the IVR is constantly polling various back-ends proactively to try and understand the reason the customer may be calling even before the customer has chosen any option. Hence, the IVR needs to have the ability to monitor the changes/updates from an interaction perspective from various channels. It needs to also keep track of the past interactions that the customer has had with the service provider so that this information can also be used to ‘predict' the reason the customer may be calling.

If we look at a context-based model, can you elaborate on Servion's architecture?

Servion is making a lot of investment in changing the way IVR solutions are deployed currently. A big part of this investment is towards understanding the reason a customer may be calling even before any pre-defined prompts are played out to the caller. Servion believes that with the right design, the reason of a customer's call can be predicted over 60% of the time. This will help play the most appropriate prompt to the caller, rather than playing a standard static call flow.

What is the role of customer analytics in context-based architecture?

Customer Analytics will play a big role in context-based architecture. When a call comes in, the system will mine a lot of past data to understand the reason of the call. This could be based on the particular customer's earlier interactions with the service provider, it could be based on the customer's past transactions, and it could also be based on other customers who have similar profile/relationships with the service provider.

Can you share some real life context-based use cases?

I am sharing three use cases where context-based messages can be played.

Scenario 1
A banking customer had applied for a credit card and was to receive it on a particular day. If the caller calls on the same day or immediately after; it's probably about that service request. The reason for the delay and the expected time to receive can be played to the caller and the call routed to the appropriate agent if needed.
Scenario 2
A customer has activated international roaming. It's most often done just before a person leaves the country. If he calls the call center within the next 24 hours; it could be for this reason. The time of activation can be announced to the caller with any other relevant information.
Scenario 3
If a customer watches channels that showcase the IPL every year; incase he calls up just before the IPL or during; it's probably because he wants to activate a sports channel that showcases IPL.

On Servion's strategy and the overall market opportunity, competition and Servion's position in this space?

Servion is a global leader in the Customer Interaction Management solution space, and is significantly ahead of its competition in this space. Servion's customers include several large banks, telcos, insurance companies, airlines around the world. Servion is the only organisation that looks at Customer Interaction in this holistic manner, starting right at the top with brand promise. This we believe is what differentiates us and our engagement from other players in the industry, worldwide.
After studying over 7 billion (and counting) multimedia interactions across the globe through various industries, Servion knows that the starting point of customer service failure is the failure to align service strategy with brand promise. Businesses invest millions of dollars in creating a brand. Unfortunately, oftentimes, similar attention is not paid to the service / interaction strategy that translates the brand promise into action. This results in customer dissatisfaction and churn. In turn leading to a negative tailspin of escalating customer retention costs, pressure to acquire new customers faster than they are being lost and shrinking bottom lines. Our consulting led approach works towards optimizing contact to enable businesses to align their customer experience and service strategy with their brand promise. This is what we call ‘Customer Experience. By Design.'
We believe that this will greatly enhance customer experience and satisfaction, because the interaction management system will be designed to offer an experience in line with the expectation of consumers.