The power of prediction
At Thanachart Bank, the contact center is a vital part of its customer-focused operations. The inbound side takes around 4.1 million calls a year, while the outbound team makes over 3 million dials per year. Though “proactive” service calls are increasing in number, the majority of outbound calls are sales related, and successful selling is a numbers game; the more customers you connect with, the more you sell.
Thanachart Bank has been using an Avaya contact center since 2008, and in 2010 following an acquisition, upgraded to the Avaya Aura® platform. While that delivers reliability and a range of features, particularly for the inbound operation, the bank’s Head of Non Branch Channels, Albert DiMauro, felt there was room for further improvement on the outbound side.
“We were working on a manual basis, whereby agents would be given a list of numbers, generated by our data management team. Using these lists, they’d speak to approximately 30 people a day, and were actually on calls for only 3 hours a day,” recalls DiMauro.
The way forward was clear. In addition to improved performance and processes, they needed more information, insight, and process automation.
Our goal was that automated dialing would have no impact on customers and the vast majority of them have absolutely no idea we’re using a predictive dialer.
Dialing up Revenue Figures
While the bank’s existing approach was generating respectable sales figures, DiMauro and his team developed a business case for the use of a predictive dialer. They identified that a 60% improvement in contact rates would lead to a proportionate increase in revenues. Staffing numbers would stay the same, but performance would significantly increase. As it turned out, their calculations were conservative.
“With the predictive dialing capabilities of Avaya Proactive Contact, we’ve almost doubled our right party contacts,” DiMauro confirms. “Agents are now on calls more than 5 hours a day and are more productive during this time. We also have far more insight into their performance. That’s having the desired effect in terms of sales productivity targets.”
People Power
Avaya Proactive Contact was one of two solutions that DiMauro considered, and both offered similar capabilities. However, aside from the benefit of integration with the bank’s existing Avaya platform, what stood out for him was “the quality of the people we were working with.”
“In initial discussions, it was quickly apparent that the Avaya business partner would require assistance,”recalled DiMauro. “They went straight to Avaya for support, and that proved an excellent decision. Avaya appointed a dedicated project manager and gave the partner all the technical advice they needed.”
The solution involved deploying Avaya Proactive Contact both in the contact center and at a separate disaster recovery site, as well as integrating it with several key IT systems used by agents. Interfaces were customized and a phased transition devised.
With the predictive dialing capabilities of Avaya Proactive Contact, we’ve almost doubled our right party contacts. Agents are now on calls more than 5 hours a day and are more productive during this time. We also have far more insight into their performance. That’s having the desired effect in terms of sales productivity targets.
Changing Working Habits
The team knew the cultural change required from the contact center agents would be quite a significant challenge. “There was a lot of concern from agents about moving to an automated dialer,” DiMauro recalls, “because it took some of their ‘control’ away and meant they’d be making a lot more calls. We also changed KPIs to focus on conversion, as leads were pool-based instead of individually assigned. Initial concerns disappeared as agents quickly realized the benefits of predictive dialing. They are now keen to use the automated dialer all the time – they discovered it increases their commission.”
Frontline managers too have gained from the solution, as they have far more information about both overall team and individual agent performance. In fact, DiMauro cites information as one of the most valuable – yet least acknowledged – benefits of automated dialing.
We have so much more insight, and control. We understand performance. We can prioritize leads, schedule calls based on customer insight data and capture incorrect numbers. We are also able to identify agents who have the will to perform, but maybe not the skills, and train them proactively to improve their success rate.
Focusing on the Customer Experience
Crucially, the increases the bank has seen in agent productivity and call volumes have not come at the expense of customer service. “Our goal was that automated dialing would have no impact on customers. We didn’t want to be connecting through to customers, and then keeping them hold until an agent was ready,”shared DiMauro. “That’s working seamlessly. The vast majority of customers have absolutely no idea we’re using a predictive dialer.”
Other improvements to the bank’s contact center have had a positive impact as well, particularly on the inbound side. “Avaya one-X® Agent has become an integral part of customer conversations,” DiMauro explains. “We use it to track the information customers enter in the IVR [Interactive Voice Response] system, so when they connect to an agent, we already have a good idea what the enquiry is about.” This seamless transfer of customer context from IVR to agents has a positive impact on customer satisfaction. Customers do not have to repeat the same information and the agent can start addressing their needs more efficiently.
Thanachart Bank is also utilizing Avaya Aura® Experience Portal to improve its telephone self-service options, allowing customers to confirm recent transactions and top-up loans without speaking to an agent. Again, this has led to more rapid fulfillment of transaction-based inquiries. For outbound marketing, Thanachart is leveraging Avaya Proactive Outreach Manager to publish targeted sales messages via its IVR solution, and is also pushing out targeted marketing emails to customers. In addition, Thanachart is hoping Thai market protocol will soon allow them to utilize Proactive Outreach Manager to send tailored messages to customers via SMS text.
Avaya one-X® Agent has become an integral part of customer conversations. We use it to track the information customers have entered in the IVR system, so that when they connect to an agent, we already have a good idea what the enquiry is about.
Expanding with Avaya
DiMauro and his team at Thanachart Bank are developing more strategies around Avaya customer engagement solutions to extend operations and make greater use of multichannel. “With Avaya Proactive Contact in place, we’ve shown exactly what we can do,” noted DiMauro. “We’re connecting to more customers, have exceeded our right party contact target and, more importantly, our agent productivity target. So now, we’re looking to take on new mandates and set ourselves more stretching targets.”
Products and Solutions
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Avaya Aura® Contact Center
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Avaya Aura® Communication Manager
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Avaya Call Management System (CMS)
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Avaya One-X® Agent
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Avaya Aura® Experience Portal
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Avaya Proactive Contact
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Proactive Outreach Manager
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Avaya Professional Services
The Thanachart Bank contact center takes around 4.1 million inbound calls a year, while the outbound team makes over 3 million dials per year.
With Avaya Proactive Contact, we’ve almost doubled our right party contact rate. Agents are now on calls for 5 or even 5½ hours a day, and we have far more insight into their performance.
