STORES Magazine - September 2008 - (Page 71)

NUTS AND BOLTS / CUSTOMER SERVICE Asked and Answered Chat solutions boost customer satisfaction and sales – online and in stores BY CRAIG GUILLOT igh atop the list of things that really irk customers are sales associates who can’t answer their questions and waiting on hold when calling a customer service line. Retailers have always worked to make their communications systems as efficient as possible but, in today’s culture of instant gratification and immediate access to information, customers are losing patience. H Thanks to the growth of high-speed Internet and the solutions of a few technology firms, retailers can now handle internal communications, customer service and sales inquiries using “chat” applications. Completely changing the fundamentals of internal and external communications, chat is becoming an important web component for many retailers. Chat’s major benefits often start internally where retailers can instantly deliver information to associates, call center agents or sales representatives. Doug Rippy is the chief technology officer for CAN WE TALK? With Bath & Body Works’ chat solution: seasonal associate training time and supervisory assistance calls hold time average handling time down 50% down 68% down 33% Bath & Body Works provides information on its products to contact center agents, website visitors and store associates. Astute Solutions, whose RealDialog and RealDialog Assist solutions deliver contextualized, accurate information to contact center associates. Bath products retailer Bath & Body Works utilizes the solutions to provide information on its 10,000 products to contact center agents, website visitors and store associates. Using “natural language processing” and advanced linguistic techniques, RealDialog understands users’ input and questions in their natural language, then responds with WWW.STORES.ORG appropriate information. Users can input a particular question and instantly receive a response in the form of a specific answer. In a case when an automated answer cannot be generated, the conversation is forwarded to a live phone agent. For bricks-and-mortar stores, this means that frontline associates can gain instant access to any information required to help shoppers. “The front-end agent was so informed and knowledgeable that they had a solution immediately, [which] really helps us take care of customers,” says Pati Crowley, director of customer experience for Bath & Body Works. At Bath & Body Works, the chat solution has yielded real results by giving associates instant access to information without drilling down through forms and databases. Seasonal associate training time and supervisory assistance calls were cut in half, hold time was reduced by 68 percent and average handling time was reduced by 33 percent. Automated chat has reduced communication inefficiencies at retail locations and call centers by instantly giving associates all of the information they need, Crowley says, and unlike with a phone conversation, an agent can handle multiple chat sessions at the same time. “My contact center says that one of their pain points was the complexity of accessing information,” she says. “It gives everyone, regardless of tenure, the capability to deliver very complex information [to the customers] in real time.” “Reactive” chat is one of the most common applications and is appearing on the websites of many retailers. Often used for customer support, it usually appears as a button or a link on the homepage and provides an instant line of STORES / SEPTEMBER 2008 71 http://WWW.STORES.ORG

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of STORES Magazine - September 2008

STORES Magazine - September 2008 Contents Executive Editor's Page President's Page Office Depot Unveils First Green Store Dunkin’ Donuts Debuts DDSMART What Shoppers Think 10 Things You May Have Missed Numbers Worth Counting Full Price/Markdown Retail People Are You a Facebook Fan? RFID Concept2Watch E-commerce Supply Chain Marketing ERP Credit Web Optimization LP Vantage Point Newsbeat Cover Story LP Program Building Biometrics Industry Perspective Customer Service Site Selection E-Commerce LOEB Retail Letter Arts Update Point of View NRF News Retail Crossword Retail Industry Calendar Last Laugh

STORES Magazine - September 2008

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