The digital transformation of customer service P ROJ E C T PA RT N E R S
The digital transformation of customer service WRITTEN BY D a l e B e n to n PRODUCED BY A n d y L l oyd
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Martijn Franssen, Director of Digital Transformation, discusses how KPN’s digital transformation looks to deliver the best omnichannel experience to customers
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s the largest telecommunications provider in the country, KPN is well and truly the network of the Netherlands. For more than
135 years, KPN has set out to provide secure, reliable and future-proof networks and services to ensure that everyone is connected anytime and anywhere. As with any technology company, the key to remaining successful has been one of evolution. Over the years, KPN has continuously evolved as a company, in order to continue to provide the services that its customers demand and the network that the Netherlands needs. Though the digital transformation is nothing new, it undeniably defines the conversation for many industries and definitely increases the pressure within KPN to continue - and even more to speed up - the adaptation process. “In order to fuel the transformation journey of KPN, we have to listen more carefully to what’s going on in the market. 4
KPN
Martijn Franssen, Director of Digital Transformation
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We live in the information age. Our
own energy which appears to come from
customers have become streetwise; they
putting down a vision and start changing
possess more knowledge around a busi-
an organisation in order to realise it.”
ness than ever before, and, more impor-
So the time was right to return to this
tantly, they are more demanding as they
great company, which is undergoing a
can move to competitors at the click of a
significant change once again as it looks
button. As such, we have to think about
to create a seamless experience for its
how we can retain them. This places
customers. Franssen recognised this
greater emphasis and responsibility on
need and when he was brought in to lead
customer service. Because who else
this transformation, the end goal was
than its care representatives can truly
clear. “The overall goal is to be where our
represent the voice of the customer?”
customers are in such a way that they will
says Martijn Franssen, who is leading
have easy, seamless journeys across
the change within Customer Service as
all our channels driven by a digitalisa-
Director of Digital Transformation.
tion of our way of working,” he says.
With almost 20 years’ experience
“Make life easier and more personalised
working with KPN initially as a business
for the customer by becoming the best
controller and then cutting his teeth in
service provider in the Netherlands. This
a number of international roles within
helps retain your customers and drives
the media and the insurance industry,
your company value.” How he looked to
Franssen was given the opportunity by
achieve this was by a digital transforma-
KPN to deliver the digital transformation
tion of Customer Service, which was to
of customer service.
take place in three phases.
“Having worked with KPN previously,
The first phase was focused on
so much had changed in the company
boosting live chat. As KPN encour-
by the time I returned, particularly when
aged customers to start their jour-
it came to internal culture,” explains
neys on the website, it was also about
Franssen. “The company has become
acknowledging the fact that not all visi-
smaller, more lean and mean. Working
tors could easily navigate it and simply
in silos is history, it has become much
needed support in order to prevent
more open and collaborative. But also, the
them from losing trust and from picking
years in between have helped me find my
up their phone in case of a next issue.
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KPN
“Our belief was that we would serve
transformation speed has a lot to do
the people starting their journey online,
with being creative. It is about iden-
but we could also provide immediate
tifying opportunities and convincing
answers to customers that needed us
stakeholders on the basis of little bits
throughout their journeys. This then
of evidence in order to continue.”
would also allow us to improve the
In order to increase live chat volumes,
quality of the online journey, because
KPN shut down its email channel.
we could ask the customer immediately
Franssen admits this could arguably be
why they needed our help and what
seen as ‘unfriendly’ customer service
was missing on the website.”
but there was method in it. “We noticed
In order to establish a substantial
that there were a lot of high costs
population of live chat engagements,
attached to this asynchronous channel,”
serious investments were required
he says. “More importantly, customer
whilst not everyone was convinced that
satisfaction was quite low. So, there was
live chat was the way to go. There is
a clear incentive to close that channel
always the fear that opening an extra
and reinvest the resources into the live
channel will result in additional traffic.
chat population.”
“However, I don’t believe a customer
With steadily growing live chat
will contact KPN via any channel just for
volumes, KPN immediately began to
chitchat,” he says.
see major improvements in its Net
“What I became aware of during the last few years is that the
Promoter Score (NPS) as detractors were exchanged for promoters. This
“In order to fuel the transformation journey of KPN, we have to listen more carefully to what’s going on in the market” — MARTIJN FRANSSEN Director of Digital Transformation
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was even more the case once custom-
in cases where voice turned out to
ers were proactively offered a live chat.
be more effective within a specific
To further grow its live chat popula-
customer journey and vice versa,”
tion, attention turned to its web care
explains Franssen. “On top of that I
team. Taking a similar approach, KPN
expect that live chat will soon be canni-
looked at introducing live functional-
balised by messaging. It will be either
ity and introduced social chat, which
self service, voice or messaging.”
acted as a bridge from the social media
A transformation of this scale asks
channels to the live chat. “Once the
a lot of the existing workforce to rethink
customer had a transactional question, such as receive a copy of their invoice, we would offer them a link to live chat and start changing the channel,” says Franssen. “Once we did that, again we started to see the NPS improve and the costs go down.” Live chat reached its peak of around 30.000 engagements a week once voice-to-chat was introduced within the Voice Response System (VRS) in case waiting time became too high. In hindsight, it became the trigger to start blending voice and non-voice skills to optimise variety for and productivity of our agents. Franssen is also keen to highlight that it has never been about realising a certain volume of live chats, the goal was to make sure KPN’s customers could rely on the company and could be on channels which they are used to. “In the meantime, the volume has reduced 8
KPN
the way they work and take on new
as the organisation, as a means of fuel-
responsibilities. Some, naturally, may be
ling a belief in the journey. “It’s about
fearful or express hesitance in adopting
showing them the use cases and show-
this new way of working. This is where
ing them what we are going through
a strong sense of change management
with this transformation. By showing
and support is key. Franssen points to
evidence you start fuelling the belief
a number of ways in which he and his
that something’s happening and they
team communicate the value of the
can contribute,” he says.
transformation to the individual, as well
“We are doing this with our own people,
Conversational experts Customer Service, Wieger den Boer and Aviva Dassen
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Conversational development team Technium
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KPN
but also with our external partners such as Continuum and Webhelp. So, we visit the call centres at different locations and look at what we are doing and where, as customer service, we are heading. It’s also an opportunity to show why we need them because if we really believe that that voice of the customer should drive our change, then our people are the key representatives in engaging with the customer and providing us with the right signals for change.” Phase two of the digital transformation saw Franssen focus more on the digitalisation of other customer touchpoints starting with voice, the biggest offline volume. KPN implemented speech recognition technology to track down the intent of the customer and to remove voice response system menus. “The problem was that too many people were involved and that it was only about routing to an available agent,” says Franssen. “At my request, we minimised the number of stakeholders and organised a small agile organisation made up of internal staff and our supplier Telecats to ensure that the company could increase the velocity in how they developed the speech domain. “They supported us in optimising the way we are routing our calls. By looking at the data and monitoring essential KPIs (like repeat callers, handling time, transfer rates, sales conversion), we try to improve our performance on a daily basis.” This approach, Franssen feels, has been incredibly successful, as it reflects the importance of partners acting as real partners and not simply as service delivery. The smaller and dedicated team made it easier to have fruitful discussions about the direction KPN was heading w w w.k pn .com
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Walk-In Customer Service, S amuel van Gelder and Iris Kuit
in. Not only to ensure that routing quality would be higher but also to digitalise
online self care functionalities.” Not only has the deflection rate
the voice response system. The motto
increased, it has also increased visibil-
was changed from routing to an availa-
ity on its customers due to boosting
ble agent into getting the best (digital)
customer recognition. This has enabled
solution. In many cases this would still
data driven routing decisions to ensure
be one of KPN’s agents, but increas-
that KPN will reduce customer effort
ingly it’s becoming directed to self care
while also optimising KPN’s results. “For
tooling as well. “This has taken a flight
example, if a customer calls us and we
by introducing our visual IVR (interac-
do see that he or she is suffering from
tive voice response) which turned call-
an outage, we will proactively inform the
ers into website visitors,” says Franssen.
customer and offer the opportunity to
“If a question concerns a topic which is
keep the customer informed,” he says.
related to a self care solution, we offer our
“Same applies for customers with billing
customers to accept an sms including
issues who need extra support to solve
a short URL to provide them with our
their difficulties; data tells us to transfer w w w.th e in te r fa ce . n e t
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them to a desk where we have more time
become hyper personalised using real-
to give the right support.”
time data insights in order to reduce
Customer data will soon become the
customer effort on the one hand, but also
main driver for business decisions; the
to spend our money wisely so we can
actual question of the customer will still
continue to offer premium services. In
be considered as crucial input, but will be
order to realise this, we need to enrich our
part of broader consideration. Franssen
customer data and increase our focus on
believes this will be a tough balancing act,
the usage of machine learning to help us
but a balancing act all the same. “KPN
identify what is good for which customer
offers everyone the highest standards
on a specific moment.”
possible, but at the same time the market
As for data, there is an important role
is changing and has changed radically,”
for customer service as well. “We use
he says. “There’s constant pressure on
our customer engagement to under-
margins and on costs, so we have to
stand who the customer is and what
become more intelligent. We have to
they really need through which we can
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KPN
“What I became aware of during the last few years is that the transformation speed has a lot to do with being creative. It is about identifying opportunities and convincing stakeholders on the basis of little proof points in order to continue” — MARTIJN FRANSSEN Director of Digital Transformation
confirm - or not - whether provided
learning and the increasingly availability
next best actions are sufficiently accu-
of real-time contextual data. Though it
rate. This is supervised learning with the
is still about recognising the customer
help of our customer agents. The effect
and their intent, it will be more interac-
is that customer service, perhaps more
tive than ever before. “We are creating
than ever before, is quickly moving the
the ability to track down the ques-
heart of the organisation.”
tion behind the question just like we
With the successful completion of
have done within Customer Service
phase one shift to online - and major
over the last decades. Not only on
inroads being made with phase two, it
the basis of a dialogue, but more and
became time to move on to the third
more by using customer journey data,”
phase, which is about the shift towards
explains Franssen.
automating the conversation with the
“In order to speed things up we again
customer. A shift driven by the rise of
started in our own domain within the live
natural language processing. machine
chat channel. It made sense because, in w w w.k pn .com
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“ The effect is that customer service, perhaps more than ever before, is fast moving towards the heart of the organisation” — MARTIJN FRANSSEN Director of Digital Transformation
customer service, we feel the pressure to
platform Nina made it possible to quickly
make sure we are effective and efficient.
put KPN’s customer service represent-
By introducing a chatbot and automating
atives in position so they could start
conversations, we are showing a good
building dialogues. “At the same time, the
business case for why we are doing it.” In
platform features helps our conversation
less than a year and a half, almost all chat
specialist to optimise the conversation in
sessions start in the bot. This already
order to minimise customer frustration
already accomplishes a double-digit
as we acknowledge that our customer
deflection by offering self care, whilst
also needs to get used to a chatbot,”
customer satisfaction remains high.
explains Franssen.
One of the reasons that this approach
The collaboration with Nuance is
has been successful is a result of KPN’s
based on a true partnership as well,
partnership with Nuance. Nuance’s
where both parties closely work
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KPN
Myron Laagland, Product Owner Conversational Customer Service
together to increase the maturity of the
across all the touchpoints, I am confi-
chatbot. “Over the coming months, this
dent we can truly improve our customer
journey will evolve further, our chatbot
service as we can offer an unambiguous
will become a digital assistant becom-
though personalised customer journey
ing the impersonation of this conver-
optimising the deployment of self-care
sational phase. An assistant which will
tooling in combination with our ever-
be equipped with the same tools and
needed and appreciated emphatic and
insights as our customer representa-
intelligent customer service experts.”
tives, and which will be connected to a number of touchpoints across KPN like our messaging channels, TV and voice,” “If we manage to create the basis for a true digital assistant having its presence w w w.k pn .com
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overons.kpn/nl