Contributor: Isobel Heinze, Analyst.
Recently I had the pleasure of speaking with a UK-based utilities/heating and servicing company as they were undergoing a digital transformation using Oracle CX applications. While the adoption of these applications had been successful in many ways, the company were still facing a few key issues relating to their customers and internal staff which affected their overall customer service experience. They wanted to allow their customers easy access to the right information and guidance, and their internal staff needed more structure to perform consistent decisions and calculations in their processes. As we discussed the challenges they were having, we agreed that they needed an all-encompassing solution, and that utilising Oracle’s Intelligent Advisor application to build ‘interviews’ could be the answer to their problems, since this technology can be used in both customer and internal-facing interactions.
To design a new “to-be” user story, we identified three key interactions that could be improved in their business:
Example 1: A new customer calls for advice on ordering a new boiler that is right for them and needs a quote. Currently, this step involves the agent copying down the details to a spreadsheet and duplicating the information into their current CRM software, where further pricing is calculated by hand. New trainees struggle to ask the correct questions, and the data can be inconsistent for similar orders.
The first step in this customer journey surrounds inquiring about a new boiler, and it’s cost. To improve on this interaction, it’s crucial to consider the end-user experience. Ensuring that consistent calculations and decisions are made by agents means that customers can receive the best-suited product and a precise price for it. Intelligent Advisor can be directly embedded into the Oracle CX console (or even any webpage), enabling the agent receiving the call to start the interview and lead the customer through a series of initial questions. Based on the customer’s responses, calculations are automatically performed, dynamically changing the questions as it goes. Conclusions are then displayed, showing the best-suited boiler for the customer. A new sales lead can also be automatically created in their CRM system with all the data from the interview recorded. A quote, in the form of a PDF document, can be generated and sent to the customer, breaking down the calculations. Using an Intelligent Advisor interview, the company will have a streamlined process which ensures no sales lead is unrecorded, inconsistent, or too time-consuming for the agent. Moreover, if the customer is a known contact in their CRM system, the interview can pull in information from their stored contact record, such as past orders, current installed boilers, and location, and this information will allow for better decision calculations.
Example 2: A customer has a problem with their boiler and calls the service team for advice on troubleshooting and checking if it’s still under warranty. Over 80% of these calls go to a service team member and are rarely documented by the agent or resolved the first time.
The second interaction occurs if the customer experiences issues with their boiler and calls the business helpline for advice. The aim here was to remove the need for the customer to call or email their service team as a first point of contact, to reduce the volume of call traffic. Instead, we wanted to redirect the customer to view information online in a self-service approach. One of the best approaches for the customer to access the Intelligent Advisor interview is setting up web services to allow interview screens to be directly embedded into any webpage or via a URL. The other approach is to utilise Oracle’s Visual Builder platform, which instead allows self-service capabilities such as login accounts for customers to view their open incident tickets, contact record, or Knowledge Articles. In this case, we designed the approach around deploying a Visual Builder application that also hosts the Intelligent Advisor interviews. For the new interviews, we wanted the customer to be able to check for themselves if their boiler is in warranty or not before they can continue to raise a service request for further support. The interview asks the customer for their boiler’s serial number or order number, and Intelligent Advisor finds the matching record within their CRM system to return the warranty date and coverage type based on their claim information entered. If found in warranty, the customer can then continue to create a service ticket where they can enter the faults description and upload photos to begin the resolution process. If the boiler is not covered by warranty, the interview directs the customer to helpful knowledge articles and video guides embedded on the interview screens to help them troubleshoot their issue before leading them to a new quote route. This approach significantly improved the first-call resolution metric and provided a dynamic diagnostic tool for the customer.
Example 3: Field engineers are sent out to customers if further inspections or replacements are required. However, they occasionally need to perform a “Hazard Awareness Check,” which is currently a paper process that is manually photo-copied and uploaded back to their current CRM solution.
The last step in these processes would be if a field engineer from the business is sent out to replace or fix a boiler. Here we wanted to implement a time-saving and integrated solution to their ‘Hazard Awareness Check’ procedure by accessing an Intelligent Advisor interview through the Visual Builder application on site. The engineer would then find the relevant service incident from the customer and use the interview to fill out the hazard checks assessment. Custom logic rules determine and produce safety considerations for the engineer while also updating the incident ticket with the outcome for auditing purposes.
These examples highlight how Intelligent Advisor can be an indispensable complement to your customer service processes. It’s build environment allows easy updates to keep up with changing business policies as Intelligent Advisor isn’t code-heavy. It’s intended for business users to create and maintain their policy models as business processes change. Using Intelligent Advisor enables businesses to streamline processes and ensure consistent decisions and calculations are made, resulting in a better end-user experience.
The three key interactions mentioned in this blog, show that Intelligent Advisor can improve business processes by providing advice to new customers, offering a customer advice service, and performing a hazard awareness check for field engineers. Overall, the use of Intelligent Advisor technology can provide an effective and efficient solution for the company’s digital transformation journey. If you think Intelligent Advisor could be a match for your business, or if you’re interested in learning more, you can reach out to me on LinkedIn or get in touch with our team at [email protected].