Staffing and forecasting gaps hurting CX? Get the Branch Workforce Playbook.

ACCESS NOW
Coconut Software Logo

Tag: Contact Center

3 Reasons to Digitally Transform Your Contact Centers

Coconut Software - Blog Hero - Digitally Transform Contact Centers

In todays digital era, consumer needs have evolved. It’s no longer a matter of “if” banks will become fully digital, but “when.” The prospect of a digital transformation in the financial services industry does not necessarily mean the end of all traditional customer experience channels, like contact centers. In fact, using technology to improve the communications channels that are already in use and familiar to your customers is a great way to ease both your client base and your staff into the future of banking technology. As the first touchpoint for many appointment-driven businesses, 75% of organizations view the customer service provided in contact centers to be a key differentiator between competitors. Is your organization’s contact center providing your customer with a positive experience? Ready to learn more about upgrading your institution’s digital presence and capabilities? Download Coconut Software’s Ultimate Guide to Digitally Transforming the Appointment Experience. According to a study done by Cornell University, the financial services market tends to leverage larger contact center operations compared to other industries and is lagging behind in implementing contact center management software. While many banks and credit unions depend on contact centers as a channel for scheduling appointments with customers, many have little to no visibility into contact handling process efficiency. Unfortunately, this sluggishness to modernize the back-end is resulting in customers waiting, and waiting on the line as contact center agents try to assist them while navigating archaic processes on the other end of the line. As you look for ways to transform your contact center, it is important to highlight areas that could be made more efficient by implementing digital tools. For example, lengthy contact handle time, poor customer experience and high operational costs are all issues that likely plague your contact center and affect your organization as a whole. Enterprise appointment scheduling is one type of contact center technology that can help improve contact efficiencies, reduce operational costs and improve the customer experience. Here’s how. Digitally Transform Your Contact Centers With Appointment Scheduling Decrease Call Handle Time The number of calls that contact center representatives can accommodate in a day is a key success metric that impacts many other areas of the business. For appointment-driven financial services organizations, more completed phone calls equal more appointments and more revenue for your branch locations. And yet, 23% of companies still do not measure call handle time in their contact center. Long call handle times lead to long hold times for customers waiting in the queue, and 80% of customers drop off the line after being placed on hold for over 1 minute. One of the ways you can make significant inroads in increasing call handling efficiency is by implementing an enterprise appointment scheduling solution. Implementing a scheduling solution creates a more streamlined appointment scheduling process that allows your contact center representatives to accommodate more calls in a day. This can also contribute to improving the customer experience by reducing the amount of time customers have to spend on the line with your organization, just to schedule an in-person appointment. Additionally, by speeding up the appointment scheduling process you can schedule more appointments, driving more revenue to your organization’s branch locations. Improve Customer Experience 57% of companies can relate improving customer experience levels to revenue growth. For appointment-driven businesses, the contact center is the first point of contact between your organization and its customers, and so it absolutely must deliver a positive first impression. If you are an appointment-driven business and your contact center schedules the majority of your appointments, it is crucial that the customer information collected at the time that the appointment is scheduled is passed on to the advisor meeting with that customer. There is nothing more frustrating for a customer, that already had to go through the tumultuous process of scheduling an appointment, to show up to an advisor that has no insight into their needs. However, 54% of customer information collected at the time the appointment was scheduled is not relayed to the customer-facing advisor. An enterprise appointment scheduling solution can be integrated across all channels in your organization and allows for information that is collected from one customer-facing channel, to be stored on one platform that can be accessed by another customer-facing channel. This means that your organization can capture additional information at the time of the appointment scheduling by adding custom questions integrated into the scheduling process. The answers to these custom questions can then be accessed by the customer-facing advisor, enabling them to better prepare for their upcoming appointment with the particular customer and tailor the appointment to their needs. An additional benefit to implementing a scheduling solution into your organization’s contact center is that it allows you to add new touch-points to the customer journey that will reduce the appointment no-show rate, as well as make your customers feel valued. Your customers will be sent a confirmation email reminding them of the service, date and time of the appointment they just scheduled as well as any additional information they need in order to be prepared for their upcoming appointment. Additionally, SMS and email reminders can be sent out to customers reminding them of their upcoming appointment, reducing the chances of a no-show. Customers will appreciate these additional touch-points as we live in a busy world and it is easy to forget the commitments that they have made, and it makes them feel looked after and that their scheduled appointment is valued. By integrating your contact center channel into other customer-facing platforms in your company you can drive more revenue into the organization and provide customers with a premium experience. Decrease Workforce Costs Forrester recently reported that call volume is expected to increase over the next 12 months and 46% of global contact center decision makers project their contact centers to grow by 5% to 10% to accommodate the increase. Many organizations are pouring more of their resources into increasing rep headcount in their contact centers to manage the call volume, but this is

5 Benefits of Digitizing Your Back-End Process

Coconut Software - Blog Hero - Digitizing the Back-End Process

Organizations are scrambling to stay ahead of their competitors in the finance industry, with digitizing the back-end process being at the forefront of innovation. However, 87% of financial organizations don’t believe their current core systems can keep pace with customer-facing initiatives. And with 60% of customer dissatisfaction originating from the back-end of financial organizations, it’s clear that inefficient back-end processes can have a negative impact on customer experience. Complex legacy IT systems, manual paper-based processes and orphaned data sources often result in high costs, poor agility, plus the customer issues of delayed response-time and lack of a seamless experience. 64% of consumers saying that they expect companies to respond to them in real-time, however, how are they able to correspond with your organization in real-time if your back-end isn’t digitally enabled and ready to respond? Digitizing the back-end process within your financial organization is crucial for the success of customer-facing channels and can have a significant impact on your organization’s potential growth. Ready to learn more about upgrading your institution’s digital presence and capabilities? Download our Ultimate Guide to Digitally Transforming the Appointment Experience today. Improve Customer Experience, Increase Efficiency, Cut Costs One of the key reasons to digitize the back-end is that it enables you to differentiate your customer journey, and offer customers unique benefits such as 24/7 access, real-time responses, and personalized experiences. Other than improving the customer experience, digitizing your back-end process also allows for an increase in efficiency and cut down on costs.  Lloyds Banking Group invested in a digital back-end technology that reduced the time it took to do certain processes by 90%.  By reducing processes within your organization you will increase efficiency and subsequently boost revenue.  According to Capgemini, automating back-end processes can help banks save 30% of their annual costs. From the process to error remediation, to training costs, overall savings can be significant. Digital Optimization Implementations Digitizing your back-end process in order to support your customer-facing channels, improve customer experience and enhance the productivity of your business may sound like an overwhelming undertaking. Where should your organization start? Ideally, you should start by automating one section of the customer journey. You can start by asking yourself a few questions: Which elements of the customer journey require significant manual effort to deploy on the back-end Which elements of the customer journey are resulting in significant customer dissatisfaction? Are there tactical solutions available to automate these manual processes? Which solutions can be implemented quickly to start delivering benefits immediately?   One great place to start is your first customer touchpoint: scheduling an appointment. Having appointment scheduling as the first touchpoint means that it is your customers’ first impression of your organization, meaning that you have the opportunity to form a positive relationship with your customers based on the quality of the experience that you provide. Identifying an area in the customer journey in need of change is a great place to start, and implementing a tool that is user-friendly and able to integrate into both customer-facing and back-end processes is an effective first step. The digital transformation occurring in the financial services industry at the moment is relatively new and your organization, as well as your customers, need something that will allow a smooth transition into the future of banking technology. Enterprise appointment scheduling is a tool that enhances customer-facing channels while also streamlining the back-end processes in your organization.  It can be implemented organization-wide, into your contact center’s appointment scheduling process, in branch as well as online, providing a new appointment scheduling channel to your customers.  This is beneficial to the back-end processes of your organization for multiple reasons such as … Consolidated Customer Behaviour Data Because the channel is integrated organization-wide, every appointment scheduling channel–contact center, branch locations, head office– will have access to the same appointment data.  This allows for your organization to speed up the scheduling process because there will be no need to correspond with other employees in other areas of your organization to ensure that no appointments are double booked or missed by advisors because they were not informed of the scheduled appointment. All scheduled appointments and staff availability would be sync across all platforms to ensure appointment scheduling accuracy and that no appointment slots or advisors get double booked due to miscommunication between the two channels. Track Appointment Analytics Integrated appointment scheduling syncs data across all appointment channels in your organization, but also offers your contact center staff the ability to capture additional customer information prior to the appointment, like past financial needs, what brought them to your organization, and who will be attending the appointment. This can help improve the quality of the in-person interaction. Post-appointment, having the ability to track appointment success rate as well as no-show rate allows your organization some insight into valuable sales information around product and services, as well as operational inefficiencies that you can address with a more targeted plan in the future. Coconut Software offers clients a host for appointment analytics which helps highlight friction points in the customer-facing appointment scheduling journey such as: Where in the scheduling process customers are dropping off before submitting the appointment request What branch locations book the most appointments which staff are providing the highest customer satisfaction according to customers.   Using the back-end process of enterprise scheduling to track analytics allows your organization the ability to assess the processes it has in place in order to provide the best service possible to its customers. Optimize Staff Times in One Program In large organizations, it can get chaotic to keep track of all of the information on customer-facing staff in order to schedule appointments. You need to track staff availability as well as updated qualifications, and hosting all of your customer-facing employee data on one platform allows your organization to run as smoothly as possible.  With enterprise scheduling, you can host advisor data on a platform that is organization-wide and able to be updated in real-time. This enhances the organization within your

5 Benefits of Appointment Scheduling Software

Coconut Software Blog Hero 6

It’s a jungle out there. These days the competition will take every advantage to break out from the pack. That’s why it’s so important that businesses strongly consider the benefits of appointment scheduling software. According to industry analysts, appointment scheduling software use is projected to grow in business by 9.8% between 2017 and 2021. There’s no denying that appointment scheduling software provides a ton of benefits for your business. But for the lingering skeptics out there, here are 5 ways appointment scheduling software can put companies one step ahead of the competition. Benefit 1. Reach More Customers, In Less Time A customer no-show represents a wasted investment of time and employee resources. And too many no-shows will adversely impact a business. An appointment software helps businesses maintain their competitiveness by reducing no-shows and optimizing the customer service experience. By cutting down on customer wait time, you’ll be reducing their frustration and improving employee performance in one fell swoop. The efficiency of the software also saves employee time, allowing them to service more customers. More customers mean more revenue opportunities for your business, and that’s never a bad thing. Benefit 2. Automated Communication Ensures You Stay in the Loop Most scheduling software packages worth their weight also include automated phone and text reminders for customers. Automated communications ensure that customers never slip through the cracks and also contributes to employee productivity. Benefit 3. Gain Actionable Insights & Analytics In an age where businesses are making major decisions based on customer data, companies can’t afford to be left behind. A premium appointment scheduling software package designed for enterprises allows them to monitor valuable employee productivity and customer data with the push of a button. This provides a better understanding of customers and this knowledge helps drive disruptive, actionable processes in all aspects of the business, from product development to marketing and communications. Benefit 4. Deliver Personalized Experience to Customers In order to stay competitive, it’s critical that businesses take every opportunity to make a good impression on their customers. White label features allows for delivering a personalized customer service experience that is consistent with the company’s brand. In addition, sending tailored email communications and notifications also helps keep a company’s brand top of mind and provides a more holistic experience. Appointment scheduling software gives companies the power to start conversations that customers look forward to coming back to. Benefit 5. Superior Project Management and Efficiency Go Hand in Hand Calendar-syncing, single sign-on, and technical support when needed are some of the important features to look out for when choosing appointment scheduling software. Companies that avoid the upfront investment to use this software risk the possibility of operating inefficiently and leaving revenue on the table for competitors. A centralized customer-oriented scheduling solution helps manage projects efficiently and minimizes bottlenecks by making appointment scheduling quick and easy. The decision to take the leap and invest in an automated solution to customer appointment scheduling requires a lot of consideration. It’s important for businesses to find the right mix of features and cost to fit their specific needs. The ease of appointment scheduling can make you stand out from the competition. The time is now to jump on the bandwagon and get a leg up on the competition before it’s too late. If you’re interested in learning more about the value that online appointment scheduling solutions can add to your business, check out our value report. What’s Next? Interested in learning how appointment scheduling can help your entire organization engage more efficiently and effectively with customers? Download our Customer Experience Whitepaper. Ready to get started? Schedule a consultation today.

Top 3 Credit Union Scheduling Pain Points

Blog Hero - Scheduling Pain Points

Depending on the size of a credit union, scheduling pain points arise for both advisors and members when it comes to their appointment management system. Pain points generally culminate around staffing requirements, research and preparation and system limitations. These pain points lead to unproductive meetings with members, missed meetings and lost time and revenue for the credit union. We’ve recently compiled the top 3 scheduling pain points that we have come across in meetings with our credit union clients over the past year. Additionally, we’ve highlighted the ways that enterprise appointment software addresses these issues, leading to less missed and more productive meetings. Credit Union – Top 3 Scheduling Pain Points 1. Establish the Omni Channel Within the Credit Union industry, the idea of the omnichannel is very important. Credit Unions understand that their members are diverse and prefer a choice for how they interact with its advisors. In order to create a fully optimized omnichannel experience, Credit Unions are looking to offer an opportunity at every level of their member interaction to book an advisor meeting. This means, over the phone, in person and online. Credit Union’s currently have a tried and true model when it comes to in branch and contact center interactions. What ends up being the missing piece is a quality digital option to help your members connect with your team. With online appointment scheduling, Credit Unions are able to empower their members by allowing them to select the branch and meeting time that works best for them. It creates efficiencies and a seamless experience for all involved. 2. Visibility of Resources and Expertise across the Branches The ability to provide a visual of which advisors can perform specific services within each branch has been very difficult for tellers, members and contact center agents to book appointments in real-time. Real-time online scheduling maps out which advisors are certified to perform what services at which branch, creating a simple online view and scheduling ability for your members, branch staff and contact center. 3. Wait Times and Hold Times Credit Unions are challenged with longer than desired wait times for contact center and walk in traffic. These wait times are resulting in frustration from its members, busy lobbies and potential missed opportunities to connect with drop-off and walk out traffic. Online scheduling creates visibility into the advisor’s real-time schedule, alleviating wait times and spreading traffic within the branch across more time slots. On very busy walk in days, providing times to meet with your advisors is convenient to your members and respects everyone’s time. Automated reminder messages reduces no shows, eliminates wait times and increases your member experience. Learn about the key features and integrations that enterprise organizations need from an appointment management solution. Download Coconut Software’s Appointment Management Data Sheet today. Looking to boost revenue and deliver a premium experience to your clients? Schedule a consultation with Coconut Software to learn more about how our appointment scheduling solutions can get you there.

Improving Member Experience for Credit Unions and Banks (2019 Update)

Coconut Software Blog Hero - Improving Member Experience

Improving member experience is at the forefront of almost every initiative that Credit Unions and Banks take part in. Recent surveys, conducted of Coconut Softwares enterprise clients, suggest that over 62% of clients chose to implement appointment management software to improve the overall member experience. In today’s digital era, where markets have become more competitive, it has become increasingly important for organizations to elevate member experience. Ready to learn more about upgrading your institution’s digital presence and capabilities? Download our Ultimate Guide to Digitally Transforming the Appointment Experience According to a recent survey by Extractable, banks and credit union have been focusing on customer service; they are providing better rates, fees, and low wait times in contact centers, as competitive advantages. However, many aren’t focusing on easy to use digital interfaces, financial tools or personalized messages. Exactable also found the average member interacts digitally with their bank or credit union 158 time a year, while only call 13 times. When so many members are embracing these digital channels, user experience is critical. So why aren’t more banks and credit unions investing in improving the digital customer experience? Not only does the digital experience affect members experience, it also influences their product purchase. Members are more likely to apply for a loan at the bank or credit union they believe has better ease of use and superior member experience. According to ebiquity, consumers are willing to spend more with a company they believe provides excellent customer service. Financial institutions with better member experience are also more likely to increase member retention and satisfaction. Other factors influencing member experience are brand consistency and recognition, including the digital interfaces and emails. Financial institutions can integrate technology with their current processes and continue to innovate, by implementing simple tools geared towards improving member experience. Here are a few tips to help ensure a successful implementation of these tools, to increase customer adoption and use: Test out the technology and gain confidence in its ease of use before a complete implementation; look for pilots or trials. Collaborate and work with the provider; develop a customized plan together that supports your financial institution’s needs. Easily integrates with your current systems and workflows; technology doesn’t need to be complicated or require long implementation timeframes. Easy to use for members and staff; increase adoption by implementing systems that members can and want to use. Omnichannel capability; don’t look for systems to replace contact centers but enhance and improve the experience for both members and staff. Secure and compliant; keep data and members’ information safe by ensuring the system has regulations and processes in place. What Next? Ready to learn more about upgrading your institution’s digital presence and capabilities? Download our Ultimate Guide to Digitally Transforming the Appointment Experience for an in depth look on how to make it as smooth as possible for everyone involved, and how Coconut Software can help get you there. Looking to boost revenue and deliver a premium experience to your clients? Schedule a consultation with Coconut Software to learn more about how our appointment scheduling solutions can get you there.