The client in this case study is Friends Provident, the FTSE 100 life and pensions company.
Problem
In the financial services industry, quality of customer service can be more important to revenue growth than product performance. In a competitive market, the quality of customer-facing staff is critical in fostering customer loyalty, and ultimately in driving revenue growth. Factors such as the time it takes to answer a call, whether the caller is put through to the most appropriate agent and how easy it is to navigate an automated system become really important. A poor impression can mean lost customers, unfavorable reputation and ultimately a decline in revenue as consumers take their business elsewhere.
IP telephony, or VoIP, has become more commonplace in large companies and call centers, replacing regular fixed-line desk phones. This is primarily because of cost; if a company already has a network for data such as e-mail traffic it makes sense to use the same network for telephone calls too. A recent Psytechnics survey, commissioned by Vanson Bourne, questioned more than 100 IT managers in large U.K. companies. The results showed that four in five financial institutions that responded to the survey already use IP telephony (IPT) in some capacity, either across the company, or in call centers to interact with customers.
One such company is Friends Provident. The company knew that an IPT infrastructure was necessary to deliver a superior level of customer service, slash telephone costs and connect its regional U.K. offices. Friends Provident takes customer service seriously. Customers predominantly interact with the company via telephone; a good quality phone call is one of the most important assets in delivering excellent customer experience, time after time. Kev Sharratt, principal service analyst at Friends Provident, explains how Friends Provident worked to roll out IP telephones throughout the company and more importantly how it became invaluable to understand a customer’s experience of a phone call.
