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| Customer service is a tricky thing |
July 14, 2003 |
By Grace Casselman
Being in business means dealing with customers, and that in turn means handling questions, gripes, compliments, orders, comments and so on. And while customers will often complain that it’s near impossible to talk to a real, live person these days, online customer support is often the best option for both the company and the customer.
And other times an actual person is best. The trick is figuring out when, and how, to make that judgment call.
That was the challenge for Aeroplan, Air Canada’s frequent flyer program. Aeroplan originally lived on Air Canada’s Web site, but in May of last year it relocated to Aeroplan.com and launched as a separate brand and entity, touting its relationships with the 14 airlines of the Star Alliance.
“Our key mandate was to automate to provide self-service,” said Marc Fares, Montrealbased director of e-business for Aeroplan, who explained that the underlying goal was to ease the intense demand on Aeroplan’s 1,200 callcentre agents, located primarily in Montreal and Vancouver. “With six million members, that’s a tremendous amount of calls.
“What really takes up a lot of time at the call centre is booking (rewards-based) flights,” Fares said. “It takes a lot of time to find an acceptable date and routing.”
While previous initiatives allowed Aeroplan members to view basic account information on the Web, the new site gives access to real-time
personal data as well as self-service flight bookings.
Requests that cannot be filled are now presented with a 14-day window of availability to help clients find rebooking options, as opposed to the “no date available” response they previously elicited.
The new site also offers non-air redemptions for ski, hotel or car rental packages. “In the future we might redeem for retail,” -Fares said.
As well, the site can now propose alternate destinations based on geographic proximity, for instance Miami as an alternate to Fort Lauderdale. Or, if the goal is a beach holiday, the site offers other beach-type destinations.
“It’s easier now for members to find what they want online,” Fares said.
Not just cost savings
The online service, which uses IBM technology for the site’s infrastructure and Blast Radius solutions for front-end development, seems to be catching on. In May 2002 only seven per cent of Aeroplan bookings were made online, but that number has now jumped to 20 per
cent, Fares said.
Michael Dingle, executive vice-president of client development for Blast Radius in Vancouver, said while online service may often result in substantial cost savings, the main focus should always be improving customer service.
So has Aeroplan reduced its call-centre headcount? No, Fares said, the call centre is not shrinking, rather, overall service levels are
improving as the staff is available to handle more complex requests. Specifically, the average speed of answer, which had been a source of complaint from Aeroplan members, had been reduced to about a minute by October/November, Fares said.
In 2003, the focus is on enhancing callcentre functions. “Having [a person] on the line will always be important. Some people prefer to do things on their own, some people always prefer the human touch,” Fares said.
Many channels,same destination
RBC Royal Bank’s online banking service was first launched in 1996, but it’s “really broken through in the last year or so,” said Jane Broderick, senior vice-president of strategic sourcing at RBC Royal Bank in Toronto.
The bank claims 2.5 million out of its 11 million banking and brokerage customers are now doing business online.
The Web site attracts five million visitsper month and the bank handles 42 million transfers and bill payments online per year—40 per cent of the total business in those areas.
The bank offers numerous channels for customers, including branches, banking machines, a call centre, a mobile sales force and online banking. Broderick said people are willing to perform routine banking tasks online but will choose to do more complex tasks, like first-time investing or initial mortgages, in person.
The key is to have “a completely integrated system” so that customers receive the same level of service and information no matter how they approach the bank.And Broderick said customers will often use different channels for different activities or at different times.
In this vein, the Royal Bank allows online customers to see all their accounts from one view. Small businesses can see both their business and personal balances on one screen. In addition, the recently added “My View” feature lets users view all their financial information, even if it’s from other financial institutions. At time of writing, this service was view-only, meaning users could look at financial information from other institutions but not manipulate the money.
Finding a voice
The question comes down to this: how do you maintain a balance between hands-off online offerings and the friendly feel of a human voice?
Unfortunately,there’s no set formula here.
Consider a company like U.S.-based Lands’ End, a direct marketer of clothing as well as home products. Landsend.com provides visitors with the option of dealing directly with a customer service rep around the clock, either via live text chat or a “call me” approach, in which the user submits a phone number and a rep calls to assist.
But consultant Richard Morochove, president of Morochove & Associates in Toronto, maintains that the advent of online customer service means it’s “harder to get the attention of a live person.
“Most companies are hoping to save money by going to online customer service.
They’re reducing human interaction and making things as automated as possible.
“If you know what you’re doing, if you’re savvy at using the Web, you can find information quickly,” he said. Otherwise, consumers risk getting trapped in “layers of voicemail” as they try non-Web routes.
Aeroplan, too, is looking at live chat technology and other options.
“Features such as live chat and call-back are very interesting and could prove to be quite effective in providing enhanced customer service,” Fares said. “Currently, however,we are focusing all of our development efforts on what we have determined to be high-priority items: expanding our online booking engine, providing new selfservice functionality and developing new marketing tools.”
He added: “I would potentially be interested in integrating chat and call-back tools but I think that, realistically, we will not be evaluating these features until Q4.”
And, as with all technology solutions, Fares said the company will have to do a cost-benefit analysis. “If we feel that Aeroplan members
would benefit from these tools and that our business objectives can be met, implementation might take place in Q1 or Q2 2004.”
Websupport
Aeroplan http://www.aeroplan.com
Blast Radius http://www.blastradius.com
Intuit Canada http://www.intuit.ca
RBC Royal Bank http://www.royalbank.ca
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