by Richard Snow |
8/1/2008 | Article ID: M08-28 | Article Type: VentanaMonitor
Summary
The Web is now an important channel through which companies interact with their customers. Yet recent research from Ventana Research shows that companies don’t sufficiently consider or invest in making it a good experience for customers. Microsoft’s Automated Service Agent (ASA) takes on this issue, using natural-language transcripts to create self-service applications. We believe that if companies put in the effort to create relevant scripts and responses to customer inquiries, ASA could dramatically improve the self-service experience and yield major business benefits. Ventana Research finds there is much companies must do to improve customer self-service to make it easier and more intuitive to use. We recommend that as part of that effort companies evaluate the Microsoft ASA product as a tool to help improve this crucial part of their customer service strategy.
Assessment
Our recent benchmark research on customer experience management showed that 81 percent of companies have a Web site. The most common use of their sites is to provide information, but a majority also use it to provide customer self-service. However, Web self-service has been less than spectacularly successful; only 44 percent of research participants reported that their customers are satisfied the majority of the times they use company’s web site. Microsoft developed Automated Service Agent to improve this situation.
ASA allows companies to develop question-and-answer dialogues in natural language formats for their Web-based self-services. These are easier to understand and use than what has been available, and guide users to resolution of their issues in much the same way as having a conversation with a call center agent. The natural language processor recognizes user input and, based on predetermined rules, either presents an answer or guides the user through further dialogue until he or she finally reaches a resolution.
As one user explained it to us, the key to making ASA work is having the right content. Rather than asking Microsoft to create their dialogues, this company worked with some of its most experienced call center agents to identify the issues most often raised by customers and the dialogues the agents had used to clarify and resolve them. The team captured this information in spreadsheets and passed them to Microsoft to be loaded into its own personalized ASA system. The outcome has been that the volume of issues resolved via Web self-service has risen dramatically and customer satisfaction levels have also gone up.
In the latest release of ASA, scripts can function as decision trees that can lead customers down the right path to resolve their issue. This version also includes integration with Microsoft SharePoint, so information held on any internal network can be made available for use in resolving issues.
ASA is a hosted service that consists of four components. The user interface, which can be either Flash-based or HTML, sits on the customer’s Web site and gives users access to ASA. It can be personalized to fit corporate branding requirements, and answers can contain images, diagrams or links to other locations in the company’s site. The Knowledge Management Server contains the language libraries and knowledge and functionality modules that contain customized versions of the dialogues and answers. It also includes a reporting module that tracks how customers are using different scripts and an audit module that shows the outcomes of different transcripts. Internal users are trained to use the Knowledge Management Server so that, based on the reports and analysis, they can modify the scripts to be more effective.
Market Impact
Typically companies provide customer self-service as a series of frequently asked questions and answers, which work only if the customer’s issues are related to one of the supported items. Other sites provide a search capability, which is not always easy to use because customers must determine the right item to search to get the answer they are looking for. ASA takes a different approach. It has the advantage of working in natural language, so it is far easier to deal with. A given system’s level of success, and its impact on customer satisfaction, will be determined by the quality and extensiveness of scripts, and in the future of decision trees. Ventana Research believes that if companies put in the effort to create and maintain those scripts, ASA could help them improve the customer experience for Web-based self-service. If so, it could help reduce the cost of customer service by having more issues resolved without a call to the contact center.
Recommendation
The Web is a tool that more and more people are comfortable using not just to look up information but also to purchase goods and services through self-service. Ventana Research’s benchmark research shows that by their own admission companies are not paying enough attention to this crucial channel for doing business and leave more customers disappointed than satisfied. As companies fight to hold down costs and increase the volume of business they transact via the Web, we believe that if properly set up and maintained, ASA is a tool that could have a dramatic impact on the customer experience and with it a beneficial impact on reaching business goals.
Related Research Notes:
Customer Performance Management Research Agenda for 2008
Customer Experience Management Can Refocus Contact Centers
Customer Experience Management Technology
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