Call centre dependent growth

Call centre dependent customer acquisition journeys are powerful at converting prospects where products are complex, benefits need explanation and customer concerns need careful handling. 

They also introduce significant friction that damages performance

• Reduced out of hours conversion 
• Resource inflexibility around varying daily, weekly, and seasonal demand
• Operational scalability for growth businesses 

Application of a true multi-channel engagement approach has the ability to mitigate the many points of friction that damage and constrain business performance, without losing the power of one-to-one human engagement.  

The benefits of a multi-channel approach are significant.  Our experience is that conversion can increase by over 30% by personalising journeys based on cohorts, which flows straight through to EBITDA.

The call centre friction review

The core challenge at the centre of a call centre driven customer acquisition strategy is that growth requires investment.  Even in today’s AI world largely it’s people who still make calls.

PrinSIX has worked with clients within the Financial Services and Telecoms industries to decouple growth from people investment by creating a data and AI led approach to maximise the value of call outcomes and create future growth through multi-channel engagement.

In the Pension industry a client conducted a customer follow up after every initial online enquiry, primarily through phone contact, with occasional email nudges.   The client treated everyone the same and lacked visibility into the best time to contact potential customers.  The call centre team were targeted to make a call back within five minutes of the online enquiry being submitted.  Answer rate fluctuated around 50% meaning the customer journey friction cost was already half of its potential value.

Insufficient queue prioritisation created operational friction where, during out-of-hour periods, customer applications were processed in a simple first-in, first-out order rather than being prioritised based on conversion likelihood or potential customer value.  This led to conversion also being 50% lower than those in hours.

Lengthy call processes due to the amount of information required from customers in the Pension market led to additional operational and customer friction.  Customers were being asked to jump from a simple online form to an in-depth discussion on a call they didn’t expect, and operationally the time it took to enter customer details limited the ability to make further calls.  Further operational and customer friction was introduced by a conflict in the call back and conversion targets.

The PrinSIX vision was to enable the client to achieve maximum effectiveness from its call centre resource and then create a multi-channel engagement approach that decoupled growth from people investment.  

This is still a surprisingly common problem PrinSIX see across multiple sectors where business growth has been achieved through one route to market and when asked for future growth there is a lack of skills to understand how to go about it.

The PrinSIX approach

The PrinSIX platform is configurable based on the requirements of each client, with a guiding principle that each journey created aims to reduce friction and enable a business to grow.

First, the PrinSIX Analytics team worked collaboratively with the Pension client to map out the onboarding process and work with key stakeholders to understand the customer and operational pain points within the journeys.  PrinSIX Analytics conducted an AI-driven analysis of the onboarding data to identify inefficiencies beyond those initially recognised by the client.

The value lost due to the inefficiencies was quantified so a benefit led business case could be built based on the client’s data to ensure a clear return on investment.  As the PrinSIX platform is configurable the PrinSIX Technology team used the insight to build a bespoke proof of concept to demonstrate how the platform could help with the challenges.

3 weeks | Engagement sign off to an ROI proof of concept 

The PrinSIX Technology solution was designed to complement the client’s existing SalesForce and Lead Byte technology, integrating seamlessly without impacting operational resources.  PrinSIX Technology addressed the customer and operational friction points by delivering the following capabilities for the client.

• Customer-Driven Scheduling enabled digital engagement, allowing customers to schedule calls at their convenience.
• Data Enrichment & Predictive Analytics enhanced customer insight providing a better view of customers and utilising using predictive models to prioritise calls to maximise conversion.
• Digital Data Capture created data collection flexibility through both digital and human resource to allow the business to scale 
• Targeted Communication Strategies stitched together new digital communication channels with effective phone calls to drive engagement.
• Customer Portal Integration meant the customer journeys were accessible via links within the communications along with the clients existing customer portal

10 weeks | First implementation delivered into production 

The benefit

The combination of the PrinSIX Analytics and Technology approach reduced customer and operational friction within the client’s new customer onboarding journeys with these highlights.  

1. Rapid implementation.  The solution was delivered from PoC sign off to production in just 10 weeks, ensuring that the client was seeing value quickly.
2. Optimised lead prioritisation.  The predictive models segmented the prospect population which identified groups converting 50% below average and up to 33% above average from a phone call.  Contact centre resources could now be focused on high-converting leads.
3. Increased out-of-hours conversion.  The new digital engagement strategy improved conversion rates for out-of-hours leads by 35%
4. Reduced out-bound call volume.  The digital engagement strategy has enabled the client to take the first step to reducing the number of required outbound calls by 5% without any performance impact.

3 months | Implementation to positive ROI

A PrinSIX value is to continually iterate.  Clients benefit from the PrinSIX Analytics team continually asking if the performance of their solution could be better as they receive more data.  Customer onboarding clients get a regular review of the performance data within PrinSIX solutions and where in house resources are limited have also asked for enhanced levels of ongoing support.

AI and data led lead prioritisation identified call centre cohorts that converted 33% above average.