Introduction
Our survey to freight forwarders suggests that self-service model is on the top of the COO and CIO’s agenda to achieve service excellence under cost-reduction initiative. Among 26 executives within the global freight forwarding business who have experience implementing self-service solutions interviewed,
38% of them are satisfied with the implementation outcomes,
only 30% of them are optimistic about the outcomes but still yet to capture its benefit,
15% of them are uncertain about the performance mostly during the implementation journey.
Below are the top three challenges encountered by the operation.
The return on investment of running multiple communication channels in a coordinated manner is low
The capability and the architecture to extract insights from the conversation is insufficient and expensive respectively
The service personalization is yet to meet business expectation
When the company further drills down to see the root causes of the top three problems, different factors weigh-in and are indicated as insufficient along the transformation lifecycle
Selection of self-service solution: Addressing the business pain points
Capability building for the operation: Knowledge transfer; Knowledge database development
This article illustrates how a global freight forwarder leverages omni-channel service cloud as part of the self-service model transition program to monetize and improve service level in the freight booking to customer support area.
Transformation journey and the success factors
Selection of self-service solution
Aligning business pain points among implementation team members is essential to generate directives for the leader to follow. It is vital to conduct a 360 degree review of the existing operation. A top-down issue tree is illustrated for the team and it enables the project team to map to respective features of the omni-channel solution. Below is part of the issue tree.
…Part of the issue tree is shown…
Tools
Outgoing engagement is not customer centric
Communication engagement is based on non-unified customer profile data and knowledge
Channels are not integrating with the customer data sources
Insight extraction
Lacking feature in the existing solution to synthesize conversations across channels
Resources
Human resources
Handling enquiries at the same time in 4+ channels is not practical
Switching from one application to the others is clumsy
Coordinating multiple channels for the same customer or the same case is tedious
30% of the enquiries are repetitive and are considered frequently asked questions that can be easily handled via other available channels
Conversation history is lost when there is employee turnover
…Part of the issue tree is shown…
With the fact that omni-channel becomes a hurdle to transit from conventional servicing to self-servicing, it is good to consider from a pool of omni-channel enablement solutions as the phase one self-service transition program.
Tools
Outgoing engagement
Communication engagement is based on non-unified customer profile data and knowledge
Channels are not integrating with the customer data sources
Feature: Omni-channel integrated to the customer relationship management system/ customer profile
Insight extraction
Lacking feature in the existing solution to synthesize conversations across channels
Feature: Built-in analytics/ customized dashboard for business to synthesize customer sentiment, extract key context and measure operational indicators to explore upcoming opportunities and improve existing service level
Resources
Human resources
Handling enquiries in 4+ channels is not practical
Switching from one application to the others is clumsy
Feature: One solution on single device capable to handle multiple channels enquiries
Coordinating multiple channels for the same customer or the same case is tedious
Feature: Consolidated conversation thread from multiple channels to have a full glance of the customer’s interaction
30% of the enquiries are repetitive and are considered frequently asked questions (FAQ) that can be easily handled via other available channels
Feature: Provide pre-chat, auto triage and chatbot features to handle 30% of the FAQ
Conversation history is lost when there is employee turnover
Feature: Hotline dedication to customer and conversation history will be stored as part of the company asset
Figure 1 is the high level process framework for the freight forwarder.
Figure 1. Service cloud process framework
Capability building for the operation
Knowledge management is a continuous process. Knowledge transfer is essentially embedded in the operation and becomes the standard operating procedure to create, update, distribute and archive respective knowledge articles. The knowledge articles serve four main objective:
Gear up skill for the new staffs as part of the onboarding process
Distribute the knowledge when there is SOP and local regulatory changes
Strengthen and remind service & sales agents on certain topics
Map under different business contexts and show to the service and sales agent for each case
Considering the business complexity, cases are embedded with relevant knowledge articles and are routed to preferred agents and escalated to the supervisor when certain conditions are met.
By implementing the omni-channel solution, the freight forwarder is able to capture below benefits
25% more leads for the freight business with automatic opportunities detection and chat-to-book during the freight rate comparison journey
Improve customer resolution time within 2 hours fulment rate from 97% to 98.5% for certain key process scenarios including custom clearance
Maintain current service and sales agent headcounts after the deployment of the omni-channel solution
Undoubtedly, There are other success factors for the implementation of self-service solutions including but not limited to implementation approach, customer selection and many others. The factors are worth reviewing and are differ case by case.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Dan Howard is a Senior Consultant, Supply Chain in the Hong Kong office; Mike Kwok is the managing director in the Hong Kong Office
For more information, please contact info@kyand.co
KY & Company
February 2023
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