Talk to any company with lots of customers and you’re bound to discover their challenges with regard to optimizing customer service. In fact, it may be the problem issue highest on their list. Whether it’s (1) the high costs involved in claim processing, (2) the unscalability of a human workforce or (3) the logistical complications of multi-channel customer helplines in the hands of real-world users – industries across the board are ready for a better solution.
Ready for a Better Solution
This need is especially urgent today, with globalized business repeatedly rattled or brought down as a consequence of lockdown protocols resulting from the spread of COVID-19. Entire call centers are, time and again, abruptly taken out of service. Such continuity-disrupting events are especially difficult to predict in the case of call centers outsourced to other regions, such as India, which recently had a wave of Coronavirus-related closures. Some big players with formerly robust customer care operations are now scrambling to meet demand. Others are failing outright. Even those still at full capacity are planning for crisis scenarios and finding themselves in critical need of a viable backup plan. If business continuity is to be guaranteed, the answer can’t be a claims department that may or may not be allowed to go to work.
Even in the absence of a global pandemic, customer care is notoriously expensive and imperfect. In the case of one Applica client, prior to the implementation of Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Applica, and Robotic Process Automation (RPA), employees were spending sixty percent of their working time on reading and sorting standard emails and other messages – specifically, the predictable and recurring claims requiring canned responses and/or simple actions, such as re-issuing invoices or providing the customer with information about service downtimes and scheduled maintenance. Additionally, a considerable amount of customer care time was occupied by duplicate and sometimes triplicate claims already in the system. Why? It is common for users to communicate their requests and complaints over several channels, especially when a backlog occurs and they do not get an answer within either the stated response time or within a shorter response time than they experienced in the past.
60% of Requests can be Diverted
Let that sink in: sixty percent of an average of 400,000 customer complaints and care requests per month can be diverted to the right AI, bypassing overwhelmed call center workers and claim departments. The profits gained include much more than the obvious reduction in processing costs to the company. And though the precise financial impact of satisfied customers and an engaged workforce is notoriously hard to measure, it’s also undeniably significant to the health and growth of businesses today.
Among the industries most often inundated by the proportion of customer care claims are banking and other financial services, telecom, streaming services, hospitals, medical networks, and insurance providers. However, the burden of claim processing is sector-blind, and clients who stand to benefit from intelligent document automation include not just wide-reaching service-based businesses, but also non-profits, educational institutions, and government programs. The key question is, will your company, organization or office benefit from custom-tailored, scalable measures that simplify the processing of user claims to reduce the workload on your staff by over half? And what a half it is: all the mundane, repetitive tasks are handled via Applica, while humans at every skill level are deployed to do what they do best: engage with the types of situations that hold interest and allow their input to matter.
Want to learn more about how Applica can take your customer care to the next level while also reducing your operational costs? Connect with an Applica expert today.
