The dedicated web centre gets customers engaged Learn how web chat and other e-contact has put customer choice centre stage for the Avios Travel Rewards programme www.avios.com – appealing to a different demographic from voice and improving both customer and agent satisfaction. Summary When Avios, the UK travel rewards programme, created a dedicated ‘web centre’, this allowed customer service agents to handle more value-added contacts while improving customer satisfaction using Avios.com. The centre was developed through collaboration across all functions, led by a planning manager. It has successfully generated an additional 100,000 online contacts with customers per year; however it remained almost cost-neutral. Web-chat has been particularly successful, delivering an extra 4,500 customer interactions per week, with 0.4% abandonment and 85% customer satisfaction. The move has also provided frontline contact centre agents the opportunity to work in an autonomous, multimedia environment and benefit from a robust progression plan.

Key initiatives “Customer choice was at the The catalyst for change heart of the project; we wanted a channel that In August 2010, Avios resource planning manager Chris Kenny was challenged by Avios Board to investigate the potential of web-chat. The business needed a customers would really new, cost-effective mechanism to reengage with those members that were on engage with. We quickly the database but no longer actively collecting or using their Avios. Being able started to realise how to cater for the 'millennial generation' had been identified as key. Having powerful these channels historically relied on voice, Avios also wanted to engage with research from could be. Members really Sabio and Gartner, which predicted the growth of web channels and a embraced them; the corresponding decline in voice. “The world is changing” “We wanted to feedback was fantastic.” embrace the future” “Doing nothing meant we could get left behind”. Chris Kenny, Creating a web-chat test-bed Resource Planning Manager A pilot was required to test customer appetite for the new medium so, having “What interests me is the formed a project team from representatives across the Avios UK Customer instant feedback you get contact centre, Chris worked closely with Avios’ Digital Planning and with a digital interaction. Innovation Team Manager, to investigate how other businesses use web-chat You don’t get that with and tender for a suitable vendor. BoldChat was selected based on its cost- voice… Web-chat drives effectiveness, scalability, and speed of implementation. A six-week trial was website conversion and launched with 16 Avios customer service and sales agents. During this time, the software was hosted on 98% of Avios’ web pages, and a raft of increased satisfaction.” management information (MI) was collected to establish which web-pages James Miller, and web-chat contact methodologies delivered critical mass; and to identify Digital Planning the medium’s revenue potential. “We set a target of 5,000 web-chats for the and Innovation Manager trial, and achieved 6,000” “We saw we could create efficiencies through concurrent web-chat handling” “The customers loved it”. Moving to ‘business as usual’ The trial’s success led Chris to propose and secure agreement for a project extension. A ‘web centre’ was created, into which other non-voice channels ( and ) were migrated. A more dynamic online FAQ tool was also built to support web-based customer service. A period of stabilisation followed Avios’ November 2011 launch during which a more robust forecast and resource plan was developed with a view to converting the project into a 59 Results n 4,500 web-chats now delivered weekly, with an abandonment rate of <0.4% permanent business unit. No industry best practice guides existed, so a test n 100,000 incremental online and learn approach was taken to ascertain the optimum scheduling and contacts per annum targeting mix, using MI collected throughout the project. Unique agent metrics n 85% of customers were also established during this time to drive productivity and improve web customer satisfaction rate channel performance. “The trial feedback was so good we decided to make it web-chat as either ‘good’ or permanent” “We created Avios best practice in the absence of industry best ‘very good’ practice” “We spent time with agents, understanding how they work, to develop forecasts and schedules”. n 90% positive reaction in customer verbatims Growing social media interactions Where previously Avios only had a nominal presence on , Avios is now actively engaged in this channel, using it alongside Twitter and the content- sharing sites YouTube and Pinterest to build brand awareness and draw members and prospects to the Avios website. Competitions and quizzes are now routinely utilised to increase social media engagement. SocialEngage has also been deployed to optimise interactions, not only Complex enabling the web centre to manage Avios’ brand-related chatter on a web single, unified platform, but giving multimedia agents visibility of Month 3 enquiries Social individual social networkers’ ‘Klout Score’ (online influence), thereby Media Month 2 (1 day course) helping them to target interactions appropriately.“Social media’s important Email (1.5 day course) for our Avios members “It informs, educates and inspires” “It’s exciting to Month 1 Live Chat use – being so immediate”. (1 day course) Developing the frontline Recruiting the right frontline teams has been critical to the web centre’s success. The 22FTE that currently work here fit an optimum multimedia agent profile, vital components of which include the ability to work autonomously, problem-solve and multi-task. They have also been rigorously tested to gauge key competencies such as spelling and grammar, tone of voice and messaging Multimedia agent accuracy (see box 1 for assessment process). To drive efficiencies, multimedia assessment process agents at Avios are scheduled to work across all four non-voice contact streams – web-chat, social media, email, and online FAQ management – but have a n (IM) formal progression plan to ensure they are fully competent in one media before assessment using mock moving to the next (see box 2). “They encourage us to think independently customer queries here” “I feel I’m making a difference to customers” “The variety of work is n Outbound email test fantastic” “It’s such a fast-paced environment; I love it”. based on a specific message, to assess tone of voice “We learnt so much from “What I like about this team is n 140 character sitting with the agents – the fact that the focus is on the assessment – testing how the challenges they face; how customer. It’s not about targets; effectively a set question they move from task to task. it’s about doing what’s right for can be answered using You need all of that information the customer using Twitter to do this job properly.” technologies that they use in n Competency-based their day-to-day lives.” interview Mike Richards, Forecasting and Scheduling Manager Emma Hurry, Multimedia Agent “We spend a lot of time training “Customer demand and people to mirror what the “You feel a lot closer to expectation is changing. customer does.” members talking to them in You need to respond to Gill Hunt these [non-voice] channels. that, no matter what Multimedia Training Specialist It’s so nice to make a difference sector you’re in.” to customers.” Craig Holland, Helen Wombwell, Head of Contact Centres Multimedia Agent

Avios Group (AGL) Ltd, formerly known as Airmiles, is a travel rewards company owned by International Airlines Group (IAG) – parent company of British Airways, Iberia and bmi. Avios’ UK members are supported by a 250FTE Warrington-based contact centre, approximately a tenth of which comprises the multimedia web centre. Technologies in use include the BoldChat web-chat platform, ExactTarget SocialEngage, IBM Unica CRM, Avaya Aura Voice and Multi-Channel system, and IEX Total View. 60