Tags: self service

How Self-Service is Elevating Customer Experience

Posted by Jim Cubby on Posted in Cloud, Contact Center, Customer Experience, Servers and Storage, Unified Communications Tagged , , , , ,

For decades, customer service and support operations have held an important role in the way organizations operated their businesses. However, this labor driven operation was looked upon as an expense—just a cost of doing business. Organizations often sought ways to lower customer service / support costs by moving this function offshore or outsourcing, limiting ways customers could communicate with them and thus reducing contact center budgets or deploying technology to deflect and/or eliminate in some cases, the “human” contact.

The attitude that customer service / support is an expense began to change as companies put more focus on the actual customer experience and realized that there were opportunities being overlooked. According to research by Deloitte Digital, customer service interactions—especially those with human interaction—are the ones that were “most likely to build or break customer trust and loyalty.”1

BizReport recently reported that customer service and customer experience are now closely linked, which affects the way consumers regard a company brand. Among the findings reported, 73% of consumers want the ability to solve product and service issues on their own. For millennials, customer service expectations have increased since 2012 with 56% indicating that they’ll switch brands if they experience poor customer service.2

Benefits of Self Service

A trend toward self-service by consumers has also emerged and likely will continue to rise. More and more consumers purchase products online and experience delivery methods such as curbside pickup and at-home deliveries. These “touchless” ways of shopping often result in customers increasingly reaching out to businesses through email or phone with questions and requests for assistance. Providing additional options for self-service can improve the customer experience and cut down on frustration, long wait times and inability to reach a business after hours.

Looking a little deeper, it’s apparent that consumers increasingly want to troubleshoot problems on their own rather than waiting to interact with companies online or by phone. Often companies will become too preoccupied in handling common questions from consumers—What are your business hours? When is my next appointment? Did my direct deposit process? How do I drive to your location? — which can negatively impact customer service overall.

To jumpstart self-service options, businesses can provide access to information via intuitive website design and automation, knowledge bases, Interactive Virtual Agent (IVA) chatbots and back-office integrated Interactive Voice Response (IVR) to their customers. For example, an IVR can be an option for handling common mundane inquiries. Doing so enables organizations to better manage their contact center agents’ time to more effectively manage incoming calls that directly affect the bottom line. Seamlessly resolving issues through the most-efficient channels equals a better customer experience, more customer loyalty and ultimately more revenue for the company.

During the COVID-19 lockdowns, one of NEC’s customers was inundated with frequent calls related to common questions like those mentioned above. The company leveraged IVR to support customers who called after business hours, allowing them to press “2” and the company would text a link to their business hour webpage automatically. After implementing self-service, our customer deflected more than 800,000 calls.

A Solution for Customer Self-Service

NEC UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is an automated telephony system that interacts with callers, back-end data sources, gathers information and routes calls to the appropriate representative, with insights to that specific customer. When customers have straight-forward questions (checking an account balance or paying a bill), the IVR enables self-serve for customers without using up the time of a live agent. When a customer’s problem extends beyond the dynamic menu, the IVR system quickly leads the caller to the most relevant agent available.

When implemented and configured correctly, IVRs can help boost sales and reduce churn. IVRs can increase customer satisfaction by enabling customer interactions to be handled and routed quickly and efficiently and reported upon afterwards.

IVR gives customers options on how to be assisted and leads them to the right information or agent for more personalized service. It also provides access during off-hours to information such as account balances.

UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE IVR makes configuration and deployment extremely simple, including adding prompts, such as:

  • Initial Greeting/Welcome
  • Language Preferences
  • Authentication
  • Tailored Self-Service Menu that offers informational prompts providing answers to common questions
  • Access to the customer’s own personal account data
  • Choices for accomplishing tasks such as making or canceling an appointment, placing an order, accessing their account or speaking to someone in customer service or a particular department

Easy IVR

ENGAGE has a user-friendly intuitive wizard to streamline the set-up, for common IVR needs. Referred to as Easy-IVR, companies can quickly configure and build a simple step-by-step customized IVR that drive business and improve customer experience. Now, in as little as five minutes, non-programmers can either build an IVR or enhance an existing one quickly and easily.

IVR Studio

ENGAGE offers a Development Studio for creating robust self-service / self-help and to integrate to external applications and data sources. Referred to as the IVR Studio, this component of the Admin Portal is leveraged by trained/certified users (partners and/or end user customers).

UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE is a cloud-based contact center solution that is fully equipped with Interactive Voice Response to improve the customer experience with seamless self-serve and customized service options.

Discover more and schedule a demo.

Sources:

  1. “Elevating Customer Service: From Cost Center to Experience Hub,” Deloitte Digital
  2. “Report: Poor customer service pushes consumers away,” BizReport

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7 Benefits of Utilizing a Self-Service Kiosk in the Hospitality Industry

Posted by Mike Gray on Posted in Customer Experience, Hospitality Tagged , , ,

In a world where providing convenient experiences for customers matters the most, kiosks have become commonplace in restaurants, retail stores, airports, healthcare, and now, at hotels. The hospitality industry has always been about luxury, pleasure, and excellent customer service, so it is to no surprise that many hoteliers have installed self-service check-in kiosks to offer guests additional flexibility and convenience during their hotel stay. Guests want to be delighted by personalized experiences, and when that happens, they are likely to come back for more stays.

Self-service check-in and check-out kiosks are automated software or digital touch kiosks that guests use to complete tasks themselves instead of relying on hotel front desk staff. Hotel kiosks are designed to be a turn-key solution that help provide a modern extension or alternative to the traditional front desk service experience.

Better Use of Hotel Resources

To offer the best service possible to guests, hoteliers should make optimal use of their resources. When integrated with a property’s PMS (Property Management System), a self-service kiosk can transform the standard and traditional service that can be offered to your guests.

Automating the check-in and out process gives your staff freedom to have more meaningful and personal conversations with guests. This could include providing advice to a guest as they head out, tending to an urgent issue, or simply taking the time to engage and chat with your guests through friendly conversation. These small interactions allow your hotel employees to offer a differentiated experience from your competitors and build meaningful rapport with guests.

Faster Check-in and Out Experiences

Guests want convenient experiences from the time they first enter your hotel, to the time they leave. The first impression starts in the hotel lobby, and long wait times to check-in and out can have detrimental effects on a guest’s opinion of your hotel. Being on-time while traveling is important- and a long wait time can affect the guest’s agenda and timeline for the rest of the day.

A recent survey of 397 adults, uncovered that speed of delivery was the most influential factor in terms of impact on customer satisfaction with self-service kiosks.

During a traditional check-in process, guests must stand in line to speak with a receptionist, often this includes filling out paperwork and reiterating information already supplied during the booking. With a self-service kiosk, guests can skip the check-in line by simply looking up their name, email, booking number or by scanning their government issued ID. This drastically improves front-desk lobby wait times and queues.

More Personalized Guest Experiences

Self-Service kiosks can gather useful data about guest and their stay history such as previous purchases, room preferences, and other special requests. If the kiosk is properly integrated with that hotel’s PMS (property management system), this offers you an opportunity to access this data quickly and deliver a more personalized experience.

Opportunities to Generate More Revenue

Self-service solutions can increase up-sell opportunities. With a robust and “Smart” self-service kiosk, guests can upgrade their room, redeem special offers, and purchase additional services such as continental breakfast or room service, all in an effortless way. Many people do not respond well to being sold things face-to-face, so adding additional services with a click of a button, appeals to this audience and can contribute to additional revenue for your hotel that does not require extra labor expenses.

Minimizes Human Error

Unfortunately, errors with hotel bookings can be a common occurrence. Regrettably, the names of guests are often misspelled, or the wrong room type is selected by accident. No matter how trained a staff member is, humans make mistakes, especially when they are busy juggling multiple tasks at once.

By cutting out the middleman when it comes time for a guest to register their stay and automating the check-in process, you can avoid common errors and improve the way you engage with customers. Self-service kiosks record customer data accurately because the guests themselves input the information while registering, then checking in. Therefore, opportunities for mistakes are greatly minimized.

More Freedom and Convenience for Guests – A Better Experience

Hotel customers appreciate different options to cater to their personal needs. Some people prefer to deal directly with hotel staff, and others prefer to handle check-in and out on their own. Regardless of their preference, offering a self-service kiosk enhances the guest’s freedom and offers them a level of control that will surely give off a good impression and improve satisfaction. Self-service kiosks empower your guests by providing them with a range of flexible options they can access at their fingertips.

Contactless Check-In

With the current state of the world, safety and sanitation is of paramount importance for travelers and employees in your hotel. This is another reason why contactless service are growing in value. By reducing the time it takes for guests to check-in and out, and keeping interactions to a minimum, you can reduce foot traffic, eliminate heavily populated front lobbies, and promote an environment where social distancing is possible.

Conclusion

A recent study showed that 72% of 33–44-year old’s were most likely to use a self-service kiosk. When weighing the potential benefits, 61% cited faster service, 59% shorter lines, 58% privacy, 50% greater control, and 38% no interaction with personnel.

It’s evident that self-service kiosks provide a broad range of advantages to hotels, employees, and guests. A frictionless check-in and out experience means more convenience, more control and elimination of frustrating lines.

NEC’s Smart Check-In Kiosk

NEC’s Smart Check-In for Hospitality solution provides an easy-to-use, automated, self-service interface that walks a guest through pre-registration and check-in/check-out process. This self-service application enables a guest to walk up to a kiosk, verify their identity through facial recognition or customized QR code and Government issued ID authentication, pull up their reservation information, add on additional hotel services, add a payment option, receive their room assignment, and print out their room key.

When a guest is ready to check out, this same self-service software enables them to simply enter their room number and check in date, review their bill, and request either a printed receipt or have it conveniently emailed to them.

NEC’s Smart Check-In interface is fully customizable with your property’s logo and images along with multiple language selections. The software seamlessly integrates with Property Management Systems (PMS) to immediately alert staff when a room has been assigned and when the guest has officially checked out.

With the utilization of NEC’s UNIVERGE Integration Platform (UIP), the Smart Check-Infor Hospitality solution can seamlessly interconnect with your back-office systems to function as one complete end-to-end solution. UIP can connect any application/data source and enables comprehensive Application Programming Interface (API) management.

Whether checking in for business or pleasure, you want to make the guest’s experience pleasant and frictionless, from the time they walk in the door until the time they walk out. With NEC’s Smart Check-In software solution, you can streamline the check-in and out process, improving guest satisfaction and brand loyalty.

To learn more about NEC’s Smart Check-In for Hospitality, visit www.necam.com/SmartWorkspace/SmartCheckIn/.

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