Company: Telstra
Entry submitted by: Richard Manley (Project Manager – Digital First)
Community: Frontline Peer Support
Lithy category: Support Savings MVP
Telstra is on a journey to become a world class technology company. A key part of this strategy is the use of Digital to improve customer advocacy. Through our Digital transformation program Digital First, we’re transforming the way we engage and support our customers. A key part of this has been the adoption of Lithium in August 2015 across our Global Call Centres.
How we are implementing Community and LSW to meet our customer care business goals
As an international business with 37,000 staff worldwide and a 100 year history, Telstra has introduced the Digital First program with the mission to digitise our channels, remove cost, and help us become a world class technology company. In August 2015, Telstra adopted Lithium to support our frontline call centres. The tool also captures the expert knowledge of our consultants so this can be shared across the company. The adoption of Peer Support by our front line represents a significant commitment to improving our support tools and driving increased efficiencies across our business.
With Peer Support, we have improved on our existing knowledge management systems. We now also have a question and solution model, where a solution can come from anyone in the business and be validated by empowered Moderators. Critical knowledge gaps are promptly identified and flowed back full circle to improve the scope and quality of our knowledge management systems.
To ensure rapid adoption across our business, we produced a series of Peer Support training videos that are both engaging and punchy. These videos represent part of our core induction experience for new starters, and enable them to intuitively start using Peer Support to find solutions from day 1.
Peer Support Training Videos:
Check them out here.
But the Peer Support story does not end there. Our customers have also benefited, through improved service levels. This is evidenced by results showing an increase in First Call Resolution, and a reduction in Multi-Agent Events since we rolled out the tool. For our customers, this means we’re getting it right first time more often, and we’re transferring customers less. All this equates to greater customer advocacy, and brings to life what it means for Telstra’s journey towards becoming a world class technology company.
Changes we implemented in our customer care organization because of cost reductions based on Lithium Community and LSW
Through Peer Support our frontline staff across different countries are able to support each other, and reduce reliance on support staff. It has also expedited the onboarding process for new starters.
Telstra agents are now able to draw on the huge wealth of knowledge captured in Peer Support. We’re driving efficiency by being able to serve our customers better and with less transfers as agents have access to more information. And we’re giving our centres visibility of key metrics and performance through the Lithium Social Web Monitor Wall which is enabling us to embed Lithium into the way our centres operate.
The efficiencies realised by Peer Support has been a critical enabler in reducing our reliance on traditional support channels. A great example of this is we have been able to reduce support FTE in centres, which is a direct cost-reduction benefit to the business. These cost efficiencies, delivered by our Digital First transformation program, will continue as we progress and industrialize the tool across our organisation, and in our journey to becoming a world class technology company.
Our metrics
Peer Support has enjoyed significant success since launch in August 2015, with results showing an increase of 1.92 percentage points in First Call Resolution, and a reduction of 1.19 percentage points in Multi-Agent Events (call transfers).
These impressive results were proven using a robust data analysis and benefits model.
The natural language search capability in Peer Support has been a real game-changer for Telstra, enabling our consultants to search for a solution using phrases intrinsic to their business area. Our traditional knowledge bases have always found this challenging. This has enabled a reduction in training time for new starters, as they can get up to speed more quickly by searching for solutions as they learn on the job.
Lithium’s natural language search capability, combined with our multi-faceted approach to enabling the Global Call Centres to adopt the tool, led to 320,000 page views in the first 6 months. Our strategic focus on questions and solutions has led to 96,000 verified solution views in the same period. These figures alone show significant value is being extracted from the tool, and there’s much more to come with plans to industrialize Peer Support as the de facto support channel not only across our call centres, but also into our retail channels.