The changing landscape of customer interactions is making the job as Customer Service Rep (CSR) more complex than ever before.
73% of CSRs agree doing their job in today’s environment requires complex or high-level skills.
At the same time, CSRs' systems and support tools haven't kept up with the new demands. For instance, reps report needing, on average, 7 systems to do their job well, but only 34% of service and support leaders feel like their Service Rep desktop is effective.
To achieve a better outcome, new, modern analysis tools could be needed to complement or completely replace the many legacy systems that exist within an organization. Today, many telcos are relying on old rigid silo-based systems.
Telia Sweden cut troubleshooting to half the time
A great example is Telia Sweden, Sweden’s leading CSP, offers mobile-, fixed-, and TV services to consumers, companies and organizations. Its mobile network covers almost 100% of the Swedish population and 90% of the area. Telia employs around 6,700 people in Sweden, one of the world's most connected countries.
Renzo Alvarez, Telia’s technical system specialist in 2nd line support, describes the problem:
“In our legacy environment, a complex troubleshooting could take up to 1.5 hours to complete in 2nd line tech support. We are logged in to up to 20 different legacy systems to get a complete customer view of everything from checking subscription status to deep-dive into the mobile network. Once starting up the troubleshooting success was up to the individual agent’s work experience and competence. He or she had to decide which system it was the best to initiate the process in. Just finding the right system in that jungle was problematically time-consuming”
A connected Service Rep desktop makes it easy for CSRs to provide a high quality, efficient, value-add customer service experience with technology, data and analytics for those customers that will benefit from an assisted service journey.
Such a system has to deliver context and guidance, such as providing the CSRs with context around the customer’s needs. In addition to great design elements it would need dynamic guided workflows for presenting just in time recommendations.
The new solution from Subtonomy will impact Telia’s customer service organization and measurable KPIs such as number of calls, escalations, handling time, callbacks and customer satisfaction will monitor their effectiveness.
Today, with new Subtonomy solution in place, all troubleshooting takes roughly half the time it did in the legacy environment. Complex troubleshooting in particular has become dramatically easier.
Boosting CSR confidence
With the new Subtonomy solution in place, new Telia employees particularly benefit from greater ease with which troubleshooting is now handled especially for simpler tasks and as a result they have become more confident in their professions.
Besides happier customers, the staff retention will likely increase which means less time spent in recruitment and onboarding – a cost-cutting measure in itself.
Of course, making it easier on the CSRs comes with a challenge: to get internal stakeholders onboard. You have to demonstrate the value, not just the cost. You also have to include the cost of churn rate over time, as well as missed opportunities, all due to sub-par customer service. Last but not least, successful benchmarks such as the Telia Sweden case above, can be helpful to clarify the benefits and drive the point home.