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ESSENTIAL INGREDIENTS FOR FIRST CONTACT RESOLUTION 5 HOW TO GET IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME FOR YOUR POLICYHOLDERS

5 Essential Ingredients for First Contact Resolution eBook

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Page 1: 5 Essential Ingredients for First Contact Resolution eBook

ESSENTIAL INGREDIENTS FOR FIRST CONTACT RESOLUTION 5

HOW TO GET IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME FOR YOUR POLICYHOLDERS

Page 2: 5 Essential Ingredients for First Contact Resolution eBook

In this eBook, Pegasystems’ Eric Deitert explores why first contact resolution (FCR) is so difficult to achieve within the insurance sector. It examines how technology advancements can empower your service organization to dramatically improve FCR rates.

Eric J. DeitertDirector, Industry Marketing Insurance Pegasystems

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Contact centers have perfected the art of capturing and tracking customer inquiries

with sophisticated techniques for measuring the performance of customer service

representatives (CSRs) and service centers as a whole. And they have spent a great

deal of money trying to reduce service time and costs through automation, analytics

and outsourcing.

Yet despite these investments, one of the most important measures of a contact center’s

productivity – first contact resolution (FCR) – remains stubbornly difficult to achieve. The

problem lies in the fact that contact center technology focuses only on giving an answer as

fast as possible. But achieving FCR on a consistent basis requires not just an answer – it

requires a resolution that truly solves the customer’s problem.

First Contact Resolution is More than Just an Answer

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FCR is not about the first contact answer – it’s abut fulfilling the issue to the satisfaction

of the customer. Consistently achieving FCR requires the ability to:

1. Know your customer. Provide CSRs with immediate understanding of the customer and issue before the call even begins.

2. Just do it. Don’t just tell the customer what will happen, empower the CSR to act and fulfill the request at the time of the call.

3. Use the right channel. Use the channel that ensures the best outcome on the first contact – and use multiple channels if that is what it takes.

4. Fulfill the request and sell more. The best resolution may involve complimentary products or services, so combine service fulfillment with relevant offers.

5. Make it a better experience. Learn from past interactions to continuously automate, refine and improve the experience.

Ingredients for FCR5

First Contact

Resolution

Improve theExperience

Know Your Customer

Just Do ItFulfill & Sell More

Use theRight

Channel

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Optimizing FCR demands understanding the context of the call so that you can

anticipate the customer’s need and react appropriately. This requires:

` Leveraging enterprise data during calls. Back-end data serves as potential context, helping you dynamically identify how you should treat the customer.

` Applying predictive analytics to the customer and the interaction. By analyzing enterprise data, you can identify patterns about which resolution is most appropriate.

` Using adaptive analytics to refine the treatment. Leveraging data obtained during the interaction – such as the policyholder’s responses – lets you adapt in real time to more effectively resolve the issue.

` Improve subsequent interactions. “Self-learning” analytics capture everything that is learned during an interaction and apply that to the next similar situation to continually refine the experience.

Know Your Customer1

Real-Time Input

Need HelpWith ...

Purchase More

Defect Commit Fraud

Your customer is going to ...

Predictive & AdaptiveAnalytics

Yes/No

Customer Data

Transaction Data

Account Data

3rd Party Data

........... Data

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It’s important not only to know what to do, but also to be able to actually complete the

request. This requires dynamic case management that connects all applicable groups and

systems needed to resolve the issue. Dynamic case management that provides real-time

access to back-end systems and step-by-step assistance ensures each interaction follows

the most optimal process from initial inquiry to resolution.

For example, when a customer applies for a policy on your website, you should be able to

guide them through the application process while accessing the appropriate systems, such

as product and underwriting systems, so that you can help the customer select the best

policy, determine eligibility, and complete approval in real time, delighting the customer with

a single, “one-and-done” interaction.

Just Do It with Actionable Processes2

CUSTOMER Needs helpwith . . .

PurchaseMore

Prevent aDefection

CommitFraud

DYNAMIC CASE MANAGEMENT

Customer Data

Transaction Data

AccountData

3rd Party Data

Real-Time Integration

RESEARCH

RESPOND

RESOLVERECEIVE

ROUTE

REPORT

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When policyholders visit your website, send an email or pick up the phone, they expect

their issues to be resolved regardless of their chosen communication channel. This

demands a “customer engagement hub” that coordinates seamless interactions over

and across multiple channels. By managing communications through an intelligent hub,

you can provide consistent responses and make sure effective resolutions are used over

every channel.

A multi-channel contact hub will also help you understand your actual FCR rates

because it makes customer interactions reportable across channels. With a central

process, you will know that a policyholder who sent an email two days ago and is now

phoning your contact center is still discussing the same issue, revealing an addressable

gap in FCR.

Use the Right Channel for the Right Process3

MAIL

FACEBOOK

FORUMS

WIKI

TWITTERCHAT

EMAIL

WEB PORTAL

PHONE

COMMONCUSTOMER

ENGAGEMENTHUB

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Resolving a policyholder’s issue can involve additional products or services. The key

is to recognize situations that are ripe for cross-selling or up-selling and respond

appropriately. By making offers at the moment when the individual is most receptive,

you can drive revenue from service calls, as well as increase policyholder satisfaction

and loyalty.

Predictive and adaptive analytics, business rules, real-time decisioning and guided

processes shine in this situation. These capabilities can automatically recognize a sales

opportunity, align your business objectives with the customer’s intent and guide the CSR

through the delivery of timely and highly relevant offers. The result is an interaction that

supports FCR and enables a profitable outcome.

Resolve the Issue – And Sell More4

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While FCR demands one-and-done resolution, it does not mean each interaction is an

isolated event. The success or failure of an interaction offers insight that can be used to guide

subsequent interactions. You can build on past outcomes in ways that continuously refine

the customer’s experience and help you determine the best action to take the next time a

policyholder contacts you.

This requires intelligent tools that enable business users to simulate and test the potential

impact of customer strategies before putting them into production, combined with the

ability to monitor performance in real-time. A complimentary technique for continuous

improvement is “design-by-doing” case management which allows manual or automatic

ad-hoc additions to a case that can be saved as a new case template. The next time a similar

scenario occurs, the new template can be applied, ensuring processes always reflects the

reality of the work required.

Make It a Better Experience with Continuous Improvement5

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Pega CRM for Insurance provide a broad and deep set of capabilities that can help you

optimize your service operations. With the ability to apply real-time, adaptive processes,

connect your front- and back-office, deliver seamless multi-channel service, automate

Next-Best-Actions and enable business-level modeling, monitoring and control, Pega helps

you empower your CRS, enhancing their proficiency and productivity, increasing customer

satisfaction and dramatically improving FCR.

The Pega Approach to First Contact Resolution

IMPROVED CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE BY 50%WHILE CONSOLIDATING MULTIPLE SYSTEMS DOWN TO 1

This life carrier, a Fortune 500 enterprise, is no stranger to change. For over 160 years, their ability to execute on strategic vision has kept them a leader. When it came time to revolutionize their entire customer service backbone, this leading life carrier formulated the right vision to surpass its competition.

To capitalize on their strategic vision, predicated on customer centricity, this carrier developed a “next generation” Customer Servicing Platform to catapult their growth and leadership into the 21st century.

In crafting the solution, the insurer was seeking a customer service platform to enable their associates to deliver interactions that delight the customer at a lower unit cost.

Utilizing Pega, a holistic view of the customer is provided across all product lines. A unified business process for inquiry and transaction processing is leveraged by the entire service organization. Furthermore, the system’s rule-driven, customer interaction manager guides each CSR, assuring the highest quality outcome coupled with an impec-cable customer experience across every interaction channel.

Their next generation customer service platform puts the customer at the center of their business. Today customers can interact with them across a variety of channels and the system assures the most appropriate business outcome is achieved to meet and resolve their needs quickly.

Due to rules driven processing, inquiry cycle times have improved by fifty percent. Customer service inquiries are delivered in a more accurate, timely and secure manner by employing standardized processes across the business.

A single version of truth with intent led processing removes unnecessary guesswork across customer inquiry lifecycle. In fact, due to work automation rules, employee training has been reduced from nine weeks down to two, half-day sessions. Furthermore, by consolidating multiple systems into 1, system maintenance costs have been reduced while average handle times have been improved; fostering happier customers. In short, the life carrier's innovative vision has revolutionized the customer inquiry process, optimizing how customer service is delivered thereby changing the competitive playing field in the life market.

“One of the key components was to get to a platform where we could develop the types of products that our agents were looking for, and we were able to do that very successfully.”

Executive Life Insurance Company

SOLUTION RESULTS

LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY

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© Copyright 2013 Pegasystems Inc. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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About Pegasystems

Pegasystems, the leader in business process management and software for customer centricity, helps organizations enhance customer loyalty, generate new business, and improve productivity. Our patented Build for Change® technology speeds the delivery of critical business solutions by directly capturing business objectives and eliminating manual programming. Pegasystems enables clients to quickly adapt to changing business conditions in order to outperform the competition.

For more information, please visit us at www.pega.com/insurance.

About the Author

Eric Deitert is Director of Insurance Industry Marketing, at Pegasystems Inc. For the greater part of Eric's career, he has worked for prominent software development companies that provide technology for process improvement. He has held a variety of roles in which he has been responsible for technology product marketing, product management, and strategic market analysis within the BPM and business rule engine (BRE) sectors. Prior to joining Pegasystems, Eric was a Research Director at Gartner, covering BPM and business rule technology.

Contact him at [email protected]