After merging EE, BT and PlusNet, we had four separate agent knowledge bases in use.
Our resulting 550 stores and 10,000 contact centre agents were handling over 3.5 million calls per month. Agents were struggling to find the information they needed. And customers were getting different answers depending on who they spoke to.
This inconsistency confused customers and led to 19 million instances where customers had to call back to sort out their issue – driving up our service costs and hitting customer satisfaction levels hard.
With the added challenges that came with agents working from home during the pandemic, it was essential we delivered a single knowledge based system as soon as possible, so that we could increase and standardise our customer service levels.
A new strategy for our knowledge-based system
We decided to take a strategic change of direction to make sure our new solution would be fit for purpose and fit for the future.
Traditionally, contact centres have been based on a ‘search’ methodology, with agents looking for answers to customer queries. Instead, we chose to move to a ‘guided-help’ system.
Our AI-based tool would walk agents through compliance-ready steps to an answer or diagnosis. This more prescriptive approach would make sure our agents gave consistent answers.
As a bonus, it would cut the amount of training agents needed and would deliver a more satisfying agent work-from-home experience.
Establishing clear and ambitious priorities
Our priorities were to create a knowledge base that was guided, proactive, easy to use and personalised. We also wanted it to be able to ‘learn’ so it would improve with use.
Our vision was to provide information to the right place at the right time so that customers would feel the service was bespoke to them and their needs.
And we wanted the solution to be updated regularly, so that we could take action immediately as soon as an agent raised a problem.
Choosing a trusted partner for rapid progress
eGain were our first choice of partner. We’d worked with them on a previous EE project and been impressed by their capabilities, commitment, collaborative approach and willingness to get hands-on to understand our challenges.
Building one solution that worked for every brand
- We recruited subject matter experts and high performing agents and trained them for a knowledge management role.
- We identified reasons customers typically called and linked these to current processes and answers.
- We then reviewed each solution pathway to see if it could be improved further.
- Once we were satisfied with each pathway, eGain built them on Microsoft Visio.
- We got sign off from the process experts and then went ahead with building our new eGain knowledge solution.
- Once live, agents tested each process and gave feedback for adjustments before we moved to piloting and launch.
Welcoming ‘Albert’ onto our customer service team
The result was a comprehensive eGain knowledge management programme called ‘Albert’, named after Albert Einstein.
Albert is driven by the voice of the customer and offers agents guided help across almost unlimited scenarios and unhappy paths. This includes 20,000 articles that eGain has distilled into AI-process guidance flows.
Albert is also tailored to the needs of different departments, ranging from compliance pathways to educating elderly customers on the changes that happen when they move to digital voice.
To make sure a customer’s experience is as satisfying as possible, eGain set up Albert to pass key customer and device information into guided help, so it’s available for agents within seconds of a call.
There are also links back to the CRM tool, which give agents access to detailed information at any point in the call. And customers can even pause calls and resume them later.
Albert has transformed our contact centre service
On average, we’ve seen:
- 10% growth across key metrics for the top 10% users
- 8% increase in first contact resolution
- 5% increase in net promoter score (this measures customer loyalty)
- 50% increase in how long it takes an agent to get up to competency.
Continuing the improvement drive
Our customer service doesn’t stand still.
We’re now working with eGain on:
- continuous improvements to our conversational guidance principles
- faster resolution paths
- further automation to support frontline colleagues and drive cost savings.
We also know that our customers face similar business challenges so we’re working with them to replicate the success that we’ve achieved ourselves.
