Use case series: Creating exceptional voice experiences for retailers
We’ve all felt the pain of calling a specific retail store only to have the phone ring out again, and again. From the pandemic causing store closures to the rise of online shopping and click-and-collect, customers are finding (or being forced to find) new ways to engage with stores.
During the pandemic, many turned to voice channels. Data analysed by Captivate Connect showed caller wait times went up a whopping 182 per cent in March 2020 compared to the previous March.
Lockdowns aside, ‘popping to the shops’ is no longer the norm for many. People want to know if what they’re looking for is in stock or whether that item is actually what they need to complete their DIY project. We don’t have time to waste.
This change in behaviour means store staff are under increased pressure to not only service customers in the store but also the hundreds or thousands of potential customers in their surrounding area. At the start of the pandemic, one of Australia’s major home improvement retailers faced just this issue.
The retailer needed to centralise customer service calls to its contact centres to free up time for store staff and improve its customer experience. To connect with its customers that were considered vulnerable and couldn’t get to stores, it also realised it needed to establish a hotline to help these customers with their projects.
The hotline needed to be in the cloud. The retailer’s existing carrier, Optus, connected its voice carriage to the NICE CXone cloud platform. Leveraging SecureCo’s SIP trunking to connect its carriage services to CXOne and its PCI DSS compliance solution for payment security, Optus was able to provide an end-to-end solution to support the new hotline.
In partnership with Optus and NICE, and as a NICE DEVone Ecosystem Partner, SecureCo was able to set up the hotline in just four days - a project that can take up to 16 weeks.
By introducing the hotline, the retailer was able to reduce inbound call handling time from 10 minutes down to three minutes, making a marked difference on the customer experience and freeing up time for in-store staff to focus on their in-store responsibilities.
As an additional benefit, the new platform enabled wider adoption of SecureCo and therefore improved PCI DSS compliance across the company, offering customers peace of mind when making purchases over the phone and online.
A lack of free time and the need for immediacy are changing the role of contact centres for retailers. Get in touch with SecureCo today to find out how you can leverage its voice services to transform your customer experience.