Cmiq 2013 - multi-channel report

2
Executive Summary
TABLE OF CONTENTS
When one encounters a buzzword enough, he
is sure to experience fatigue, frustration and
perhaps even resentment. But no matter his
emotional exasperation, one’s best efforts to
silence the trumpeting of a trend will prove
futile if that trend represents a new way of life.
The jury is still out on the question of whether
multi-channel represents a new way of life, but
with organizations devoting countless dollars
and even more resources to the pursuit of a
multi-channel experience, one is not going to
readily find shelter from the storm of that
buzzword.
But is an inability to escape the genesis of a
propensity to embrace?
This past May, Customer Management IQ
engaged an audience of contact center,
customer service, IT and marketing professionals
to determine the extent to which their
businesses are adapting to this so-called multi-channel
world. Insofar as the surveyed sample
represents an audience of those without any
pretense of ignorance towards the conceptual
existence of multi-channel, this endeavor aimed
to prove the extent to which knowledge—and
potentially support—of the notion is translating
into action.
For as ubiquitous as the terminology and
abstract concept might be, its interpretation as
a best practice is anything but. Essential to the
exploration, therefore, was an effort to
benchmark how the customer management
professionals are defining and driving the idea
of multi-channel.
To which business functions is it most relevant?
Does it reflect a form of aligning and
integrating the existing contact center or a
strategy of increasing the channels in which
organizations communicate with their
customers, supporters and audience members?
Is the definition a hybrid of the two; or,
alternatively, does it refer to a completely
different customer management philosophy?
And to the extent that customer management
strategy and execution exist not in vacuums but
as part of a chain that could include numerous
participants but always at least two—the
organization and its audience—how do
definitions, implementation practices and
perceptions differ among the diverse members
of the chain?
An essential step in the process, conceptually
unpacking multi-channel only represents the
beginning of an analysis. Once it can either be
narrowed down to a specific, one-size-fits-all
customer management framework or accepted
as one that will look considerably different
across organizations, it then must be graded
against a palette of acceptances, actions,
measurements, planned investments and
recognized limitations.
Once a business internalizes a particular
definition of multi-channel and thus uniforms
itself with a call-to-action, what steps does it
take? What does it do in the short-term, and
what can it keep on the backburner? How
successful can—and should—it be during this
implementation process? If the answer to that
question is not “infinite,” then what is standing
in the way?
The customer management community
recognizes multi-channel as a term. This report
aims to reveal the extent to which it is a
business reality.
Findings ....................................................5
Methodology,
Demographics and
Background............................................6
Understanding the
Multi-Channel World ......................7
Reduction
of Satisfaction......................................9
An inhibitive Definition ..............11
“Owning” the
Multi-Channel
Experience ..........................................14
Call to Multi-Channel
Action ......................................................17
Putting Promise
into Practice ......................................20
Conclusion –
Multi-Channel is
About the Customer....................22
Executive Report on
Multi-Channel
Customer Management
Adapting to a Need for Adoption, Integration
customermanagementiq.com

3
Contributors
Chris Ezekiel has a technical, sales and marketing background. He has been
working in the world of virtual assistants since 2000 and founded Creative
Virtual in November 2003. Prior to this, Chris worked for a US software
company in various roles (starting as a Software Engineer, then as R&D
manager and then as Sales & Marketing Director). Employing his technical
and entrepreneurial skills, and through the development of the enterprise
level V-Person™ technology, he has established Creative Virtual as one of
the world's leading providers of virtual assistants. He has a passion for
creativity, innovation, technology and physics (now you know why Creative
Virtual’s V-Person is called Quark!), and in his spare time enjoys skiing and
snowboarding, and watching his beloved West Ham (where his optimistic
nature is sometimes stretched to the limit!).
Ryan Hollenbeck serves as Senior Vice President of Marketing for
Verint® Systems, the market leader in enterprise intelligence and security
intelligence solutions. In his position, he is responsible for global marketing,
including corporate marketing, marketing operations and programs,
solutions marketing, marketing communications and sales enablement.
He also drives the Verint customer experience management initiative for
enterprise markets.
With more than 20 years of experience in technology marketing,
Hollenbeck brings a wealth of experience in positioning, launching and
building markets for software and IT solution providers. During his 10 year
tenure with Witness Systems—which in 2007 combined with Verint—he
served as vice president of corporate marketing and investor relations. Prior
to joining the organization, he held management and leadership positions with
Dun & Bradstreet Software, Prentice Hall Professional Software and Crescent
Communications (now Ketchum Worldwide). Hollenbeck holds a Bachelor of
Journalism degree with an economics minor from Oregon State University.
Madelyn joined inContact in 2010. Madelyn has worked for Fortune 50 firms
to small startups, including Sprint, Hallmark Cards, and H&R Block. During
that time she’s worked in Marketing, Product, Sales, and Operations.
Madelyn has worked in and managed teams in blended call centers at
Hallmark and Sprint.
Chris Ezekiel
Founder & CEO
Creative Virtual Ltd
Ryan Hollenbeck
Senior Vice President
of Marketing
Verint® Systems
Madelyn Gengelbach
Director, Market
Intelligence
inContact

4
Contributors
Ian Jacobs helps craft the vision and messages for Genesys’ customer
experience products. These include Genesys’ voice channels, as well as
newer digital channels, including social, Web, email and mobile products and
solutions. He explores the intersection of technology, culture and process, as
well as the ways consumers embrace and live with new channels. With this
mandate, he helps define the direction for future Genesys solutions.
Ian speaks regularly to customers, prospects, partners, press, and analysts
about best practices and trends in customer care.
Prior to joining Genesys, Ian held several senior-level analyst positions in the
contact center and CRM space. Most recently, he was a principal analyst at
Ovum spearheading an effort to focus on business benefits and drivers for
customer interaction technologies. He brings with him 20 years’ experience
as a marketer, journalist, and analyst in the enterprise software market.
Ken Osborn is the Senior Director of Product Marketing for Oracle’s
Customer Experience applications, focusing on modern contact center
applications. He has more than seventeen years of experience in customer
service applications, including cloud computing, CRM and Enterprise
software. Previously, Ken was Vice President of Marketing for Five9,
responsible for all facets of marketing. Ken was also at salesforce.com,
where he led marketing efforts for the Service Cloud, substantially growing
the market awareness of the advantages of cloud computing for Customer
Service and Support organizations. Finally, Ken spent a number of years at
SAP in Product Marketing and Product Management leadership roles.
John Purcell is Director of Customer Care Products at LogMeIn, Inc. In this
role, he is responsible for growing the Customer Care business by shaping
vision, solution strategy and product direction. John’s team creates
application user experiences that delight customer care agents and
empower them to fully satisfy customers.
John has developed deep, hands-on experience solving customer support
problems and frequently shares his insights via speaking engagements at
industry events held by orgainzations such as the Help Desk Institute (HDI)
and Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA). In doing so, he helps
companies evolve their support organizations in order to overcome new
challenges and capitalize on fresh opportunities.
More specifically, John was one of the first in the industry to discuss how
social media and the proliferation of smartphones, tablets and other mobile
devices are critical new factors in the customer exerience. He often advises
on how to integrate social, chat and support technologies to create a
proactive customer management approach, which results in happier and
more loyal customers.
Prior to joining LogMeIn, John spent 12 years in the mobile
telecommunications industry, and held senior technology, sales, and business
development roles at LogicaCMG (now Acision) and Red Bend Software.
Ian Jacobs
Customer Experience
Evangelist
Genesys
Ken Osborn
Senior Director of
Product Marketing
Oracle
John Purcell
Director, Customer Care
Products
LogMeIn

Based on the simplest possible conception—
communicating with customers in more than
one medium—nearly 88% of organizations are
“multi-channel.” But when it comes to
actually delivering a quality customer
experience across channels, phone continues
to reign supreme.
Asked how customers rate their experiences in
up to nineteen different channels on a scale of
1-5, only the traditional telephone support
with a live agent scored over 4 (4.13). The
overall average—a valuable indicator as to the
current state of multi-channel customer
management—was just 2.90. Email, live chat
and in-person represented the next-strongest
options, while assorted options for text, video
and virtual agent communication serve as the
weakest choices.
If that finding is disappointing from a statistical
standpoint, it is certainly not surprising. Asked
how their organizations value customer
experiences in those nineteen channels,
respondents provided an average score of only
3.09. As with the question about customer
feedback, respondents ranked live phone,
email, chat and in-person contact atop the
heap.
That hierarchical value assessment manifests in
more than mere rhetoric. With little exception,
respondents revealed that operational focus,
evidenced by practices like abandon rate
measurement and workflow forecasting,
remains fixated on select channels, notably
phone, e-mail and live chat.
Despite modest status quo assessments of
service via avenues like text (including text-to-call-
back), video and virtual agents,
respondents almost-universally recognize the
benefits of ramping up performance in those
channels. Nearly 87% of respondents said
providing text-to-call-back customer service
would benefit their customers and
organizations; 84% shared the same view
regarding remote access, while 74% forecast
impact in adding video chat and virtual
assistance to the customer service suites.
5
Findings
Though nearly 60% see the merit in providing
customer service via Facebook and Twitter,
respondents believe their potential impact is in
the marketing realm. Nearly 80% of
respondents believe marketing via the two
networks will bring mutual benefit for
customers and organizations; that support
level rises to 88% for LinkedIn.
Human interaction, however, remains the
preferred avenue for sales communication.
63% of respondents felt that adding a sales
effort to live agent and in-person interactions
would bring mutual benefit to their customers
and organizations.
Plans to act on this sentiment are decidedly
less universal. Despite articulating the benefits
of channels like text-to-call back, remote
access, video chat and live agents, considerably
less than 50% of respondents actually plan to
offer any form of communication in those
channels over the next twelve months. And
though a majority of respondents will offer
communication in channels like social and
mobile, the population planning to engage
customers in those channels is decidedly less
than that which anticipates their benefits.
More evidence of that disparity between
acknowledgement and action comes in
response to the notion of customer channel
preference. Though 80% of respondents rate
the importance of engaging a customer in his
preferred channel at a 4/5 or 5/5 (and only 5%
rank it at a 1/5 or 2/5), only 30% of
organizations can consistently do so. 21%
percent never can.
Insofar as that customer preference might
hinge on the transaction, it is conceivable that
a lengthier or more complex transaction might
move across channels. Consistent with that
notion, respondents ascribe significant
importance to cross-channel communication;
89% believe it is at least somewhat important
for customer and transactional data to be
integrated and shared across channels, while
59% believe it is very important.
Only 30% are presently capable of doing so.

Methodology,
Demographics
and Background
In May, June and July of 2013, Customer
Management IQ conducted this research with
collaboration from an audience of customer
service, customer experience and contact center
professionals. Representing buy-side
organizations, vendor organizations and
independent consultancies, respondents
contributed insights via a web survey and/or
targeted, one-on-one interviews.
Requests to participate were issued irrespective
of company size, call center size or region,
assuring that the sample represents a global
customer management audience.
Example job titles included “CEO,” “chief
marketing officer,” “director of customer
experience,” “head of customer service,”
“director of contact center,” “senior director,”
“customer service manager” and “vice president
of operations.” 22% of respondents identified
themselves as either vice presidents or C-level
executives, while an additional 40% identified
themselves as directors or managers in a contact
center/customer service function. 6.5%
reported their job functions as “consultants,”
while just over 15% work in a marketing role.
Though industry representation was not
concentrated—twenty eight distinct industries
were identified by respondents—it did skew
slightly in favor of consulting, finance and
outsourcing. 12.9%, 10.8% and 9.7%
represent those respective sectors.
Contact center size skewed towards the small
end, with the majority of respondent
organizations seating less than 50 agents in
their centers. Still, more than 25% seat at least
250 agents, and 8.5% boast agent forces in
excess of 5000.
Customer Management IQ does not share
individual response data with readers or report
underwriters (sponsors), but 26.1% still
declined to provide insight into their annual
budget. An additional 19.6% said that they
are unaware of their annual spend.
Of those who did reveal their total annual
budgets, 10.9% confirmed a spend in the $100-
500K range. 8.70% are spending between one
and five million, while 6.5% have a budget in
the $100-500M range (the same percentage
spends $500K-1M). A total of 4.4% maintain
annual budgets below $100,000, while 2.2%
greenlight more than a billion dollars annually.
On-premise continues to be the preferred
contact center platform. 50% of respondents
rely on on-premise platforms, with 31.0%
operating from a single site. Single- and multi-site
cloud contact centers collectively serve
28.6% of respondents, while 11.9% prefer
multi-site hybrids between on-premise and
hosted. Other hosted and hybrid contact
centers have minimal representation, while no
respondent is currently reliant upon a single-site,
hosted center.
The respondents, who are modestly tech-savvy
within their contact centers, show a particular
preference for knowledge management and
voice-over-IP solutions. 60.5% use each
solution, enabling the two to rank as the most
popular technology offerings by a considerable
margin. At 42.9% penetration, computer-telephony
integration is the next most popular.
Going forward, process efficiency seems to be
the greatest driver of technology spend. An
additional 55.3% of respondents plan to begin
using unified communications solutions in the
next twelve months, while 50% will invest in
business process management tools. Consistent
with the analytics push, 44.5% will begin using
CRM integration in the next year, while 34.2%
will invest in Big Data solutions.
Sentiment for the latter is polarizing, however.
While a considerable segment plans to invest in
the Big Data realm this year, an even larger
segment (39.0%) is categorically ruling out such
an investment. Enthusiasm for screen capture
solutions is similarly limited; 38.1% say they
have no plans to use them in the coming year.
6 customermanagementiq.com

Multi-Channel:
Conception #1
In its simplest sense,
multi-channel refers to
offering communication
opportunities—defined,
in this case, as those
concerning marketing,
sales or customer
service efforts—in
multiple media.
Understanding the
Multi-channel World
Commonly touted as a top business priority, customer service often
degenerates into a battle between promise and practice. Terms like customer
experience and customer centricity are bandied about religiously, but such
enthusiasm does not consistently translate into action. Inactivity, driven either
by actual limitations or fundamental indifference, often persists amid a culture
advising the exact opposite.
Given that disconnect, a successful investigation
into multi-channel customer management
requires an appreciation of context. What the
media says regarding multi-channel can differ
significantly from how end-user customers
perceive the concept. That customer
philosophy can differ vastly from the B2C and
B2B business perspective, whose own
interpretation might conflict that posed by their
vendors and service providers. Sifting through
that chain of conflicting logic is therefore
essential for benchmarking where organizations
are and where they need to be on the multi-channel
process cycle.
In its simplest sense, multi-channel refers to
offering communication opportunities—
defined, in this case, as those concerning
marketing, sales or customer service efforts—in
multiple media.
Though the simultaneous rise of social and
mobile has conflated the discussion, leading
many to treat “multi-channel” as a synonym for
social, the simplest conception of multi-channel
does not mandate participation in any specific
channel.
An organization that communicates with
customers via phone and email is, therefore, a
multi-channel organization.
To the extent that businesses care about labels,
that definition is valuable. Since solution
providers generally advise businesses not to
immediately expand into every conceivable
channel—especially if they are not equipped to
meet high customer standards in those
channels—businesses should not feel as if the
multi-channel label is reserved for only those
who are omni-channel.
Madelyn Gengelbach of InContact, for instance,
recommends that businesses “start small” and
focus initially on adding one or two new
channels—typically email and/or phone—to
complement their traditional live phone agent
offering.
“Our approach is a pragmatic approach,”
explains Gengelbach. “I’m not talking about
doing it all at once; I’m talking about actually
beginning the process. If this is what I can do
right now, it may not be all the things my
customers want, but it is a start.”
Aware that businesses can mistake multi-channel
for a marketing campaign rather than
strategy, Verint’s Ryan Hollenbeck similarly
encourages a pragmatic, methodical approach.
“You can’t do multi-channel customer service
on the basis of wanting to market it. If you’re
not prepared to respond appropriately and set
service level agreements you intend to respond,
then you’re going to be in a real difficult
situation,” explains the executive.
Respondents will find affirmation in such
advice. Though 87.5% communicate with
customers in multiple channels, few provide
enough connection options to justify an omni-channel
label.
Of the nineteen options, live telephone agent is
the only communication method offered
unanimously by the respondents. Consistent
with Gengelbach’s rollout recommendation,
email is the next most popular channel: only
4% of respondents refrain from contacting
customers in that pathway.

What percentage of your customer
contacts are handled through the
following channels?
0 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
We don’t offer this channel
Less than 10%
11-20%
21-25%
26-30%
31-40%
41-50%
51-60%
61-75%
76-80%
81-85%
86-90%
91-100%
Q1
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
Other social channels
Telephone
(live agent)
Telephone
(IVR self-service)
Email
Live Chat
Web self-service
Mobile app
self-service
Text
Text to call-back
Click to call-back
Onsite representatives
Remote access
Video chat
Video demo
Virtual agents
FAQ pages
Other

Multi-Channel:
Conception #2
If that is true, then the
appropriate evaluation
perspective is not
whether or not a
business serves
customers in multiple
channels but whether
its channel offerings
align with customer
preference
Reduction
of Satisfaction
“There’s no question that customers are not only asking for but anticipating
multi-channel interactions with companies,” notes Creative Virtual’s Chris
Ezekiel. “Customers also expect to engage using the communication method
of their choice. Wherever they want you to be, that’s where you need to be.”
While the reduced standard of multi-channel
provides businesses with encouragement and
affirmation, it is not without negative
ramifications.
Notably, it distances brand behavior from
customer sentiment.
Multi-channel might literally refer to
communication in more than one medium, but
customer appreciation for multi-channel is often
decidedly different.
“There’s no question that customers are not
only asking for but anticipating multi-channel
interactions with companies,” notes Creative
Virtual’s Chris Ezekiel. “Customers also expect
to engage using the communication method of
their choice. Wherever they want you to be,
that’s where you need to be.” LogMeIn’s John
Purcell shares in that approach, noting that a
customer-centric philosophy and prescriptive
approach to channel communication do not go-hand-
in hand.
“We’re not prescriptive about using specific
channels. In fact, in keeping with our customer-centric
philosophy, we firmly believe customers
will choose the channel(s) they prefer,” says
Purcell.
Executives like Ezekiel and Purcell do not
downplay the importance of getting the
logistics of a communication right before
offering it to customers, but they absolutely
recognize that channel positioning is not a
strictly-internal decision. When determining
where best to serve customers, it is the voice of
the customer itself that serves as the best guide.
If that is true, then the appropriate evaluation
perspective is not whether or not a business
serves customers in multiple channels but
whether its channel offerings align with
customer preference.
The respondents agree.
Less than 5% dismiss the importance of serving
customers in their preferred channel, indicative
of near-unanimous support for the concept.
Multi-channel customer management,
according to the overwhelming majority, is
about more than engaging customers in a
multitude of channels. It is about engaging
those customers in the right channels.
And though commentators like Hollenbeck and
Gengelbach stress the importance of a
methodical approach to multi-channel customer
management, they agree that the voice of the
customer is integral to the process.
“Analyze your own customer base – what kind
of model do you have,” asks Hollenbeck, before
advising, “Put the priority on the channel
preference that your customers have.”
For Gengelbach, businesses must adopt a
gradual approach to multi-channel specifically
because they need to align their offerings with
customer demand. If strategies and
measurements are not carefully constructed
around customer feedback, the result will be
unsatisfying interactions and unhappy
customers.
“You have to make it work for you so that you
can make it work for your customers,” cautions
the InContact executive.
Building without consciousness of the customer
base—“not thinking from customer-in but
company-out,” as Genesys’ Ian Jacobs puts it--is
one of the major reasons multi-channel
initiatives are failing to take flight.

Q2 How do your customers rate their
experience with following channels in
their contacts with your organization?
Rate only those channels your organization offers; 5 highly satisfied;
1completely unsatisfied
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
Telephone (live agent)
Telephone (IVR self-service)
Email
Live Chat
Web self-service
Mobile app self-service
Text
Text to call-back
Click to call-back
Remote access
Video chat
Video demo
Virtual agents
FAQ pages
Other
Highly Satisfied (Attendee Response %)
Answer Options
0 1 2 3 4 5

Multi-Channel:
Conception #3
Businesses must
recognize the reality
that as interactions
become more complex
and communication
forums become more
varied, that preference
could span multiple
channels.
When it does, it
behooves organizations
to assure the customer
can move between
channels without
interruption.
An Inhibitive Definition
What is it about turning concept into action? Organizations recognize the need
to be multi-channel, but, as the data shows, only a limited number are actually
operating in channels outside the typical sphere of phone, email and live chat.
What is it about turning concept into action?
Organizations recognize the need to be multi-channel,
but, as the data shows, only a limited
number are actually operating in channels
outside the typical sphere of phone, email and
live chat.
When it comes to engaging customers in their
preferred channels, support is similarly
unanimous. But, predictably, initiatives that
actually allow for that capability are far from
universal.
Though only 5% oppose such a practice—and
roughly 80% appreciate its clear value—only
29.8% of organizations can consistently serve
customers in their preferred channels. 21.3%,
meanwhile, outright dismiss their ability to
make good on that commitment.
While the percentages are not overwhelmingly
discouraging, they definitely do not befit the
supposed importance of honoring customer
channel preference.
Assuming this disparity is not the product of
utter disregard for customers, it signals the
existence of significant inhibitors in the multi-channel
customer management process. The
status quo, clearly, does not support the optimal
vision of multi-channel.
Respondents and contributing analysts
highlighted a number of potential inhibitors,
but the most notable is a business challenge
that has long impacted all organizational
functions.
A clear roadblock to multi-channel customer
service, its relevance in this discussion is
particularly significant because it directly affects
a popular, alternative conception of multi-channel.
While multi-channel, in its simplest sense, refers
to the provision of communication across
numerous media and, in a customer-centric
sense, can refer to an ability to serve customers
in their channels of choice, it also has another
meaning: creating a seamless, cross-channel
customer experience.
“When we are talking to our clients, they don’t
think that the simple idea of multi-channel is
enough,” explains Genesys’ Jacobs. “It says
that you’re doing multi-channel but not that
you’re doing it in any consistent way. We are
seeing leading companies take a cross-channel
approach, creating a seamless conversation with
consumers as they move from channel to
channel. There are no silos visible to that
customer and more importantly the context of
the conversation is maintained across call
channels and interactions – customers to do not
have to repeat themselves and agents do not
have to ask the same questions over and over.”
With customer preference at least relevant to
the multi-channel discussion, if not its primary
driver, businesses must recognize the reality that
as interactions become more complex and
communication forums become more varied,
that preference could span multiple channels.
When it does, it behooves organizations to
assure the customer can move between
channels without interruption.
“Customers are looking for a journey that spans
channels, and they do not want a disconnect in
that journey,” explains Oracle’s Ken Osborn.
Customers might be looking for that seamless
journey, but they are certainly not receiving it in
the status quo.
Even though more than 88.6% of respondents
believe such cross-channel communication is at
least somewhat important—and 59.1% call it
“very important”—only 30.2% are actually
making good on that directive in the status quo.
Crippled by isolation—both in management of
specific channels and in broader business
functions—departments and their processes
have historically been bracketed into silos. This
segmentation, which has historically and
infamously affected collaboration between
internal functions, is a recipe for disaster in an
era of multi-channel customer care.

An Inhibitive Definition
Negative on face—how can a business
effectively serve customers across a myriad of
channels if those channels are not properly
integrated—the silo dilemma is exacerbated by
the marketplace’s broader trends towards
customer experience improvement.
As individual business segments and channel
teams focus on optimizing their own
experiences—or on adding new channels to
meet the simplistic demands of multi-channel—
they only drive further wedges within the
organization.
“Companies even with the best of intentions
can kill the customer experience,” declares
Genesys’ Jacobs. “They optimize channels in a
silo, and that can actually create a negative
effect on other channels … even when they’re
adding channels, they’re starting to add them in
a very siloed way, leading to a very inconsistent
experience for consumers.”
This reality offers a damning view of the
intuitive approach to multi-channel, which
suggests that businesses should first establish
themselves as omni-channel enough to account
for customer channel preferences and then
assure those channels are properly
communicating. If cross-channel is where
businesses truly want to get—and this report’s
respondents and contributing executives concur
that it is—it must come far earlier in the multi-channel
lifecycle.
It, in fact, must define multi-channel because if
businesses optimize their channels independently
of the cross-channel concern, they will only
further inhibit the business’ ability to achieve that
flavor of communication and collaboration.
Today’s organizations are
expected to connect with
customers in numerous
channels, if not any
specific channel a given
customer prefers. But
offering a variety of
channels as options for
marketing, sales and
customer service
conversations is only half
the battle; a truly multi-channel
experience is
one in which customers
can seamlessly move
from channel-to-channel
without sacrificing service
quality in the process.
Chris Ezekiel, Creative Virtual – “What if somebody starts a conversation on one channel
and wants to switch to another? Cross-channel interactions, we find, are becoming
increasingly important, especially within the banking, telecoms, travel and retail sectors.
After companies recognize the value of multi-channel they need to ensure their channel
strategy encompasses the scenario of customers moving from one channel to another.”
Ian Jacobs, Genesys – “All [multi-channel communication] should appear seamless, just
one face to the customer.”
Madelyn Gengelbach – “Once you get going, that type of silo approach to handling
multi-channel will begin to be a burden.”
Ryan Hollenbeck, Verint – “Think about [the service experience] as [that of] one customer
and one company.”
John Purcell, LogMeIn – “They’ll engage with you in several different ways before they’ll
pick up the phone. If we lose sight of who our customers are, beyond just gender, age,
ethnicity, and home address, we miss the road-signs telling us what they expect, desire,
need.”
Ken Osborn, Oracle – “Information must be consistent, you cannot have [agents]
repeating information and preferences must be supported. I think that many companies
have taken the siloed view of channels, and this needs to be more coordinated.”
MULTI-CHANNEL:
A CROSS-CHANNEL
EXPERIENCE
EXECUTIVE INSIGHTS:
*

Rate the importance in your personal/professional
opinion for the capability of delivering service sales
or marketing offers via a channel that a customer
states or exhibits a preference for.
(1=Not at all important; 5=Very important)
Q3
Q4
56% Attendees Ranked 5
If a customer states or exhibits a preference for a
particular channel, is your organization capable of
delivering service sales or marketing offers via that
channel consistently?
40% Attendees said sometimes
30% Attendees said yes
21% Attendees said no
9% Attendees said I don’t know

“This is why people
aren’t [developing
integrated multi-channel
strategies
more quickly],” says
the executive. “If you
suddenly do it, you’re
managing changes to
different processes,
productivity and
staffing. Do you think
that their executive
management will
allow them to not
meet that SLA?
No – they’re not
going to get a free
pass on that!”
“Owning” the Multi-
Channel Experience
Support for channel integration is not, however, a
simple process for most businesses. Thanks to
debate over which department owns each channel,
priorities will often be far too conflicted to allow for
seamless integration.
Consider the social channel. Best practices articles
routinely advise businesses to consider social media
for customer care, but in the status quo, 50% of
businesses situate social in the marketing
department. And in cases where that marketing
department does not also own the contact center
and customer service wings of the business, that
ownership classification will naturally serve to
segment social from the rest of the customer
experience.
“I think the challenge is that many companies are
taking the [segmented] approach to multi-channel,
both from a channel perspective as well as an
organizational perspective,” says Oracle’s Osborn.
“Marketing is investigating channels such as social,
while customer service is trying to play catch-up
with the cross-channel perspective.”
And yet, for as detrimental as such segmentation is
on the surface, professionals not only tolerate but
actively encourage its continued existence.
Asked how they envision different channels
impacting their businesses, respondents
demonstrated an overtly bracketed mindset. They
see social networks, for instance, as far more
relevant to the marketing function than to customer
service. Live chat and text, meanwhile, are
perceived as far more valuable to service than sales
and marketing aims.
It is not that they are wrong. Professionals are
conditioned to follow a combination of results and
intuition, and thus far, it is very likely that certain
channels have proven more useful for certain
business endeavors.
But one cannot ignore the presence of a self-fulfilling
prophecy. As long as businesses continue
bracketing different channels—and assigning
ownership and metrics in accordance with those
brackets—channels are going to perform in different
ways.
And though advising businesses to dismiss those
preconceptions and view all channels as holistic
customer engagement platforms seems easy
enough on paper, transforming that directive into
action is far more difficult.
In addition to preconceptions about how channels
perform, business leaders also maintain
preconceptions about how certain business
functions perform. They approach concepts like
marketing, sales and customer service with
preexisting metrics and predetermined ROI
calculation, and if different channels perform against
those stock benchmarks in different ways, they
could raise false red flags.
That hurdle, in fact, is why InContact’s Gengelbach
recommends a gradual approach to multi-channel.
“This is why people aren’t [developing integrated
multi-channel strategies more quickly],” says the
executive. “If you suddenly do it, you’re managing
changes to different processes, productivity and
staffing. Do you think that their executive
management will allow them to not meet that SLA?
No – they’re not going to get a free pass on that!”
Insofar as functional professionals are more
comfortable showing the customer service ROI of
phone and e-mail channels and the marketing ROI
of social channels, they, fearing ramifications for
underperforming against past benchmarks, will
continue on their same courses. Even if
transforming a channel mindset is valuable in the
long run, professionals are driven to risk-aversion
(and change-aversion) by fear that they cannot
show that value in the immediate term.
And if that is all a business will consider, there is no
simple fix. If the numerous cable and airline
companies have not flirted with the realm of
perfection after years of investment into social
customer support, why should an organization
without social customer care experience feel
confident in its ability to produce instant results?
If progress towards a legitimate multi-channel
experience is to be had, it must instead be driven by
a renewed approach to the performance
measurement.
“Traditionally, there have been different metrics for
sales, marketing, etc.,” says Creative Virtual’s
Ezekiel. “But an interaction can do several things –
it doesn’t have to be just sales or customer service.
We can do multiple things with that customer if we
approach it in the right way. And that’s where the
systems integration becomes important. Once the
technology is able to work seamlessly in this way,
enabling interactions covering all aspects of the
business it then just becomes a natural extension for
these divisions to work closely together.”
Managers and front-line employees cannot be
expected to take an integrated, holistic approach to
a channel if they are not completely confident that
the executive rank is evaluating performance from
an integrated, holistic standpoint.

Q6
Are customer data and transaction data integrated
and passed between channels and applications?
(E.g., If a customer starts an order on the Web and needs agent assistance, can the
agent immediately see the transaction history without having the customer repeat it?)
50% Marketing
23% Contact Center and
Marketing share ownership
17% We don't have a social media
channel presence
10% Contact Center
Q5
70% Attendees said no
30% Attendees said yes
Who "owns" your organization's social
media channel?

What channels do you think it
would benefit your organization and
customers to add to your offerings
and in what functions
Marketing Sales Call Center/Customer Service
Q7
0 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
Telephone
(live agent)
Telephone
(IVR self-service)
Email
Live Chat
Web self-service
Mobile app
self-service
Text
Text to call-back
Click to call-back
Onsite
representatives
Remote access
Video chat
Video demo
Virtual agents
FAQ pages
Other

If one instead defines
multi-channel as the
ability to communicate
with customers in their
preferred medium, he
must recognize the
reality that most
businesses cannot
consistently do so.
That businesses almost
universally want to do
so makes that reality
even harder to swallow,
as it means enough
internal and external
inhibitors exist to
prevent businesses
from delivering on the
promises of customer-centricity
they
personally hold sacred.
Call To Multi-
Channel Action
Common sense, survey data, anecdotal responses and solution provider
analysis collectively reveal that multi-channel is, at best, in its preliminary stages.
No matter one’s personal conception of a multi-channel customer management
approach, he would be hard-pressed to find universal adoption in today’s
marketplace.
If he defines multi-channel as the ongoing
introduction of new contact options for customers,
he must point to the fact that many businesses
remain fixated on a small number of channels.
And regardless of whether they operate in two or
fifteen channels, many of these businesses operate
with a strict, internally-driven sense of priority: they
devote the bulk of their effort, measuring and
forecasting to only a handful of channels.
That reality is important. None of the thought
leaders interviewed for this report advocate an
urgent transition into omni-channel customer care,
but the reason for curbing their rollout enthusiasm
is acceptance of the notion that service must be
superb within each channel. That businesses are
refraining from expanding channel offerings yet
not even optimizing the channels they do offer is a
separate, more alarming reality.
If one instead defines multi-channel as the ability to
communicate with customers in their preferred
medium, he must recognize the reality that most
businesses cannot consistently do so. That
businesses almost universally want to do so makes
that reality even harder to swallow, as it means
enough internal and external inhibitors exist to
prevent businesses from delivering on the promises
of customer-centricity they personally hold sacred.
And if one looks at multi-channel as an opportunity
to secure seamless communication—and
experiences—across media, he has no choice but
to condemn businesses for not getting that done.
The busting of silos, however clichéd in the
business world, has not made its way into the
world of customer management, and customers
continue to bear the brunt of poor cross-channel
collaboration.
Short of any conceivable standard, multi-channel is
not as mature in execution as it is in executive
discussion. Swift, meaningful action is certainly
necessary.
But as businesses consider their steps for moving
forward, it is important to position a firm objective
atop the ladder. Ineffective multi-channel customer
management is not inherently better than an
insufficient palette of channel offerings, and
businesses therefore need to implement solutions
and strategies that drive them towards a very
tangible, irrefutably-valuable end.
With a consensus that multi-channel incorporates
all three conceptions in its truest, most mature
sense, businesses must begin working towards
that end from the get-go. Relevant contact center
decisions and investments must move towards an
environment in which businesses are available
to communicate wherever customers could
conceivably want to communicate and wherever a
given customer needs to communicate regarding
a given issue. Such communication must be fully
capable of delivering substance to the customer,
and in the event that a given inquiry needs to
span channels, the transition should be
unequivocally seamless.

EXECUTIVE INSIGHTS:
*
No matter the
framework, today’s
organizations are not
making meaningful
good on their multi-channel
initiatives. As
they strive for better
performance—and
better results—they
need to more firmly
identify their key
objectives.
Chris Ezekiel, Creative Virtual – It’s much more than just about multiple channels. It’s about being
able to start in one channel and continue in another. It’s about accuracy and consistency. It’s then
about actually attributing sales ROI to those interactions as well. The KPIs need to be about much
more than customer service, they need to combine the metrics from all areas of the organization.”
Ian Jacobs, Genesys – “Success [takes the integration of teams. All of a sudden, you’ve got a
phenomenal customer experience when you get departments working together, including
marketing sales and service. It removes all of the frustration from the process, and solves your issue
the first time, right when you need it.”
Ken Osborn, Oracle – “It is the lack of imperative that is preventing action. I think the greatest ROI
is to look at the ease with which customers will switch brands based on a poor customer experience.
We found close to 86% of customers have already switched brands, and companies are losing up to
20% of revenue in missed opportunities. Once the imperative is established, it should be easier to
remove those obstacles around technology, organizations…In order to succeed, companies need to
align objectives across sales, marketing and service. They need to understand the connected
customer experience from buy to own, and they need to align their processes and objectives to that
experience. Once this alignment has taken place, it should be much easier for companies to deal
with disruption in the future.”
Ryan Hollenbeck, Verint – “Analyze your own customer base – what kind of model do you have?
Put the priority on the channel preference that your customers have. They will tell you.”
Madelyn Gengelbach, InContact – “Some companies use multiple different systems to, in effect,
become multi-channel. Maybe they only have a voice-based ACD and are using a separate system
for email and maybe another system for chat and another for social media. What we’re finding [is]
that [while this] may be able to work for a little while, once you get going, that type of silo approach
to handling multi-channel will begin to be a burden.”
John Purcell, LogMeIn – “The frustrating thing in the industry in general is that, in spite of
believing in the concepts of engaging with customers in the channels they choose, businesses are
reluctant to invest.…It starts with buying into the notion that actually engaging with your customer
on subjects of their choosing, at times they prefer, using channels they select, for as long as they
want to engage, is a good thing.”
OBJECTIVES
FOR MULTI-CHANNEL
CUSTOMER
MANAGEMENT
Respondent- “Consistency of delivery across all channels - each channel should have the
same offers, solutions and ability to resolve customer concerns.”
Respondent- “Consistently providing information that is best suited to the inquiry. Then
transitioning to another channel (including all the supporting information) if one channel is
not meeting the customer's needs.”
Respondent- “Make yourself available where the customer wants to connect with you.”
Respondent- “Customers expect a company to be able to provide service at any time,
through any means, and that companies will have knowledge of these interactions and all
relevant information about the customer.”
Respondent- “Just offering many channels without "substance" behind [them] will lead
to customer frustration.”

Are traffic and workload for the following
channels included in your forecast?
Yes No Don’t know
Q8
0 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
Telephone
(live agent)
Telephone
(IVR self-service)
Email
Live Chat
Web self-service
Mobile app
self-service
Text
Text to call-back
Click to call-back
Remote access
Video chat
Video demo
Virtual agents
FAQ pages
Other

Putting Promise
Into Practice
If responses to the survey demonstrated nothing
else, they confirmed that the push towards
legitimate multi-channel customer management
is a legitimate one. Though it might
occasionally be sensationalized by the media,
the directive towards multi-channel is not
fabricated.
And yet, for all the manners in which
professionals confirmed their interest in multi-channel—
either by revealing how certain
channels are lacking, trumpeting a need to
serve customers in their channels of choice or
discussing the importance of cross-channel
communication—few confirmed unequivocal
success in creating the optimal experience.
Crippled by philosophical limitations, structural
limitations, budgetary limitations and customer
data limitations, many businesses remain
stranded from the realm of meaningful multi-channel
customer management. They are
forced to focus on minimal, piecemeal
improvements.
“This has much to do with the legacy view of
customer care – it’s a “cost center,” clarifies
LogMeIn’s John Purcell. “If we’re going to
really look at customer engagement as valuable,
we have to look at it as a strategic investment,
not something whose cost we have to bear. If
we can make that mental and strategic
transition (and we are), we believe that
concepts like multi-channel engagement will be
unlocked.”
Insofar as cohesion seems to, universally,
represent the most important ingredient, here-and-
there modifications to contact channel
strategy are ill-advised. Businesses instead need
to operate in accordance with a long-term,
integrated plan. They still might act in spurts,
but benefit will come from the fact that those
isolated actions will align with the central vision.
They will serve as enablers—rather than
inhibitors—to a stronger multi-channel
experience.
With the need for collaboration and alignment
so pronounced, one common recommendation
is to umbrella the multi-channel process under a
customer experience or engagement function.
“Customers should create a customer
experience office and hire a CCO to correlate
everything and collaborate internally,” contends
Verint’s Hollenbeck. “[That office can] create
the right listening tools to understand what’s
happening, share it at the executive level [and]
also create first responder teams internally who
can share what’s actually happening to cross-functional
[leadership].”
By filtering every element of the multi-channel
process through the customer experience
function, businesses assure they are creating a
unified, customer-centric vision for each
channel. This will instantly remove a crushing
roadblock to cross-channel communication and
thus instantly position the business to better
engage customers.
Looping the multi-channel strategy under the
customer experience function is not, however,
a call to extricate marketing and sales from the
process. It simply is a reminder that all decisions
affecting the customer should be coordinated
with the division responsible for knowing the
customer.
“Of course there needs to be involvement
from all areas of the business – technical,
marketing, customer service,” clarifies Creative
Virtual’s Ezekiel. “But unless you also have
someone responsible for customer
engagement, you’re not going to understand
what their requirements are in the multi-channel
world.”
Because such issues are more readily remedied,
the tendency to ascribe customer management
issues to human, strategic and philosophical
bottlenecks is a common one. It is not,
however, a sufficient means of diagnosing
multi-channel challenges.
Technology plays an enormous part. In
pursuing stronger, multi-channel customer
experiences, many businesses are forced to
patch new features onto their antiquated
systems, which makes no guarantee of smooth,
efficient integration between the affected
channels and processes.
Oracle’s Osborn contends, “Technology is the
biggest inhibitor [to the multi-channel
“This has much to do
with the legacy view
of customer care –
it’s a “cost center,”
clarifies LogMeIn’s
John Purcell. “If
we’re going to really
look at customer
engagement as
valuable, we have to
look at it as a
strategic investment,
not something whose
cost we have to bear.
If we can make that
mental and strategic
transition (and we
are), we believe that
concepts like multi-channel
engagement
will be unlocked.”

Putting Promise Into Practice
experience]. As channel technologies were
introduced – email, chat, voice self-service -
companies released technologies individually to
address all of those. Today, because cross-channel
processes are much more critical, the
technologies must allow for the seamless
integration of process and information.”
And the process of seeking investing in pricy
new technology, especially given the long-standing
cost center stigma attached to the
customer management function, is often an
unappealing one for middle management.
“The fact of the matter is that when you deal
with any type of technology based on premise
hardway or locally loaded software, you are
dealing w/ business models that require
upgrades,” explains InContact’s Gengelbach.
“They are capital expenditures, and updates
and changes [thus] tend to be less frequent on
the development cycle and the buying cycle.
[These] capital expenditure[s] can create a
barrier.”
Costly as such upgrades are, they might also
prove ineffectual. Today’s customer
management model requires an integrated
approach, and if a given platform is not capable
of facilitating that integration, the impact of
upgrades will be significantly dampened.
Gengelbach notes, “One of the things that we
see as a real strength is to have a solution with
a unified ability to route every channel on one
centralized platform. It’s better for agent
productivity, it’s better for measuring and
monitoring and it’s more efficient across the
whole enterprise. It’s all in one place.”
Because a cohesive, integrated system is
essential, focusing only on the functionalities
missing from a legacy system is an improper
approach. Though it might enable a business to
diagnose its current capabilities, it creates the
pretense that closing those specific gaps will
automatically optimize the customer experience.
In reality, such optimization comes not from
patching an existing system but from thinking
about how the different elements, processes
and touch points of a system communicate with
one another. The goal, when considering any
addition or subtraction, is to assess how the
change will impact that communication.
“Take a step back and what technologically
would make this feasible – there needs to be a
system where the context from interactions on
one channel can then be used to impact the
interactions on those other channels,” offers
Genesys’ Jacobs.
Rather than serving as a directive to ditch one’s
existing system and by something new, the
advice more notably encourages a revamped,
holistic mindset for assessing the state of one’s
customer management systems.
The correct assessment requires a holistic view
of the organization and what it is trying to
accomplish. Once it understands who its
customers are and how it intends to engage
them, it then must determine the appropriate
platform for following through on that
engagement plan. Technology is a tool rather
than a strategy, and successful leaders evaluate
their technology against that notion.
In adopting this holistic, solution-centric
approach, businesses will be able to not only
determine the appropriate contact center
platform but also the appropriate platform(s) for
internal operations.
“You need a single platform with centralized
management. That’s a real boon for ROI. It also
allows you to play around with those levers. If
we improve this, are we actually hurting here,”
explains Jacobs, adding, “There’s also the
people side – some of that aided by technology.
WFO tools to allow companies to take a look at
all the skills and resources that they have and
apply those in the best way. Companies can
also differentiate who handles the different
types of service at different times of day.”
Oracle’s Osborn
contends, “Technology
is the biggest inhibitor
[to the multi-channel
experience]. As
channel technologies
were introduced –
email, chat, voice self-service
- companies
released technologies
individually to address
all of those. Today,
because cross-channel
processes are
much more critical,
the technologies must
allow for the seamless
integration of process
and information.”
The correct assessment requires a holistic view of the organization and what it
is trying to accomplish. Once it understands who its customers are and how it
intends to engage them, it then must determine the appropriate platform for
following through on that engagement plan. Technology is a tool rather than a
strategy, and successful leaders evaluate their technology against that notion.

Conclusion –
Multi-Channel Is
About The Customer
Far more than advice for technology buyers,
the directive to think about the holistic
customer experience is the heart of driving
multi-channel excellence.
In its simplest sense, multi-channel matters
because it can improve the manner in which
businesses understand, engage and retain
customers. From channel additions, to process
mapping, to metrics, to integration, a multi-channel
process’ validity is affirmed or negated
by its impact on that broader customer
experience question.
Concepts like channel integration are not
important because they are “best practices.”
They are best practices because they are
important to the customer experience.
“A classic example: after engaging in a
different, self-service channel, in certain cases
the user might need to be passed over to a real
person,” offers Creative Virtual’s Ezekiel.
“What you then want to do is pass a copy of
the virtual conversation over to the real person
so that the user doesn’t have to repeat
everything.”
Ezekiel’s perspective is informed by legitimate
customer need rather than by competitor
strategy or technology vendor sales copy. And
it reflects how thinking about the customer is
the safest, most successful way to assure a
business’ multi-channel effort moves in the
right direction.
Businesses—and business leaders—will attack
the multi-channel issue from a different
perspective. More so than any of her fellow
report contributors, InContact’s Gengelbach
pushes for a gradual rollout process. Yet her
guidance is every bit as customer-minded as
that of more aggressive multi-channel
advocates.
“Create those use-cases or those
experimentation points collaboratively with
your customers,” recommends Gengelbach,
who notes that by building out the multi-channel
effort through a methodical,
experimental process, businesses can best
understand how their customers are
consuming the new channels and what
“hiccups” need to be remedied.
An advocate for the cross-channel approach,
regardless of the number of channels being
maintained, Genesys’ Jacobs ties his
recommendation to customer effort, which is
rapidly emerging as a pivotal metric for the
customer management function.
“[Companies were] optimizing for each
specific function; now they’re starting to look
at customer effort,” says Jacobs. “It’s about
making it easy for customers to do what they
want to do.”
Effective, seamless cross-channel
communication certainly helps make the
customer experience easier.
More than just trends, concepts like omni-channel
service offerings and seamless cross-channel
speak more accurately to marketplace
reality than previous iterations of customer
management.
It is why someone like Oracle’s Ken Osborn
can ridicule the notion of treating multi-channel
as an ideal. Multi-channel is a
necessity; the unattainable ideal, he argues,
would be attracting the kind of homogenous
customer base that would not require multi-channel
communication.
“Preferences vary by demographics,
geography, and issues,” explains Osborn.
“The only companies that can afford to ignore
the impact are those that have a 100%
homogeneous customer base, with a very clear
understanding of preference, and well
established expectations. That part of the
equation is the idealistic part.”
And with that diverse customer base comes a
need for a versatile customer management
strategy.
“Multi-channel is
promising because it
allows us to
recognize that the
base is diverse, and
becoming more
individualistic –
society encourages
that today more than
it ever has,” says
LogMeIn’s Purcell.

Conclusion –
Multi-Channel Is About The Customer
“Multi-channel is promising because it allows
us to recognize that the base is diverse, and
becoming more individualistic – society
encourages that today more than it ever has,”
says LogMeIn’s Purcell.
If the key to the multi-channel question is
diverse customer sentiment, the need for
quality customer feedback becomes more
pronounced than ever.
“Don’t leave the recorded calls in the call
center only,” advises Verint’s Hollenbeck.
“Figure out what your customers are actually
saying. Take that information back into a cross-functional
team meeting and use VoC to drive
customer experience excellence.”
That 80% see the merit in addressing customers
where they want to be addressed but only 30%
can consistently do so is alarming. That 90%
see the merit in communicating customer data
across channels but only 30% can consistently
do so is troubling.
But if businesses consider taking action after
reading this report, it must not be because of
the startling statistical disparities. If they truly
want to succeed with multi-channel customer
management, their action must be driven by
an alignment between the way their business
functions and the way their customers need
the business to function.
Multi-channel initiatives are to be determined
by customers, not by statistics, best practice
articles or technology pitches.
“Don’t leave the
recorded calls in the
call center only,”
advises Verint’s
Hollenbeck. “Figure
out what your
customers are
actually saying. Take
that information back
into a cross-functional
team meeting and
use VoC to drive
customer experience
excellence.”
COMING SOON: Multi-Channel
Customer Management Summit
Prepare for a cutting-edge virtual experience, combining a faculty
of the most battle-tested, insightful speakers in customer
management (including the contributors from this report!) with
the most interactive online summit format imaginable.
Stay tuned for your exclusive, COMPLIMENTARY invitation
to the Multi-Channel Customer Management Summit.

Cmiq 2013 - multi-channel report

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