Canadians investing in omnichannel experience need to focus on common causes of inquiry

With customer service leaders increasingly challenged to address the needs of the “now culture” and “me-conomy,” Katarina Radman explores what this means for telecoms CX leaders thinking of investing in their omnichannel support. 

Omnichannel service is still in its infancy in Canada

McKinsey recently commented that customers now “believe they can get whatever they want, whenever they want, within minutes.” But are Canadian brands delivering against those expectations?

A recent report on Customer Experience in the Canadian market found that both customers and leading brands were in violent agreement on the state of omnichannel provision in Canada. While Canadians are using more channels than ever to communicate with businesses, only 23% of Canadian consumers say they are receiving seamless omnichannel experiences, and just 21% of executives say their company has a comprehensive omnichannel strategy. The same study found that 50% of employees feel one of the biggest challenges their business faces is customers moving to new channels.

These two phenomena – channel proliferation and a lack of omnichannel experience – frequently go hand in hand. Businesses have raced to add extra channels to their customer service mix to meet customer expectations. Still, each channel has different operational silos and do not work from a common pool of data – meaning that experiences are frustratingly fragmented.

CX is such a key competitive battleground that executives are targeting additional budget

In Canada, customer service has become a key competitive battleground across all verticals, and the telecoms industry is no exception. Telecoms customers now expect instant responses, 24x7 availability, easy access to information, minimal queue time, and personalized experiences.

At the same time, operators are keen to reduce churn as much as possible for sound financial reasons. In 2017, BCE and Telus revealed that it cost almost 50 times more to acquire a customer (SAC) than to keep one - with retention costs of C.04 and C.74 respectively, and average SAC of C1.

Reflecting this need to keep customers happy and reduce churn, Canadian executives have stated that they expect CX budgets to grow and 35% see their organization's key performance indicators improving.

Billing remains a major cause of CX disruption and of inquiries

Improving customer support means refocusing on major causes of inquiry and ensuring that the customer journey to resolve them is efficient and seamless. One of the most significant causes remains bill-related issues, and this is particularly relevant currently due to two key factors:

• the cost-of-living crisis means customers are more focused on their charges and more sensitive to bill shock. Any price rises need to be carefully communicated in this environment
• new network rollout (5G and full fiber), means that there will be more rapid innovation of services, as well as new charges and packages. All of which is a potential source of confusion if not explained clearly.

Calvi’s research has revealed that CSPs still aren’t offering genuine omnichannel support for customers inquiring about their bills, and there are clear reasons why. As in many other industries, channels have been implemented separately and aren’t properly integrated to deliver a seamless and persistent experience. Data isn’t shared across channels, so when customers need extra help, they often have to repeat information or start again. Key data might not even be available in certain channels – for example, while all customers can check their bills online, they might not easily be able to perform other tasks (such as check their T&Cs or view their contracts) or receive a notification their online bill is ready.

When customers can’t find information they need easily in their preferred channel, they inevitably call the contact center or their dedicated support team – a jarring drop in their digital experience. But it needn’t be like this.

Calvi provides the foundation for smooth omnichannel support for billing inquiries

The good news for Canadian operators, and indeed all operators, is that Calvi can help them accelerate the delivery of omnichannel support for billing inquiries in several ways:

• Calvi Core provides one of the key building blocks of a seamless omnichannel experience by ensuring that every channel is working from the same data. Calvi Core pulls the data from all existing billing systems into one place and empowers digital self-service by making this information available to customers, so they can easily find the information they need.
• Calvi Consulting provides specialist advice to CSPs embarking on omnichannel investments to help them rapidly resolve many of the common challenges they’re likely to encounter around billing and billing inquiries. Amongst other things, our expert consultants can help CSPs reduce the number of billing-related inquiries, create seamless support for bills, and show your teams how to reuse existing capabilities to deliver against their goals rapidly.

In short, Calvi helps CSPs ensure fewer inquiries in the first place, because billing information is clearer; we enable customers to answer more questions themselves; and we ensure CSPs deliver a less frustrating and seamless cross-channel journey for all customers. Finally, we support CSRs and specialist support staff by giving them the data they need at their fingertips to resolve complex inquiries faster.

The result is lower support costs, less customer frustration, and a tangible impact on key performance indicators. That’s good for all CSPs – no matter which market they’re operating in.

To find out more about how Calvi can help empower your omnichannel strategy and deliver world-class support for bill-related inquiries, feel free to reach out! 

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