Moxie  

Forrester's Multichannel Communication Capabilities Best Practice Assessment

This survey was taken from the Forrester Research, Inc. report, "Forrester's Best Practices Framework for Customer Service,"
May 26, 2011.

Please choose a value in the column that best describes your company's performance relative to each of the capability statements according to the following scale: A "5" means your company has an outstanding level of capability in this area throughout the organization, while "1" means your company has a poor level of capability.

 Forrester

1. Communication channel strategy

 1
Poor		 2
Below average		 3
Average		 4
Very good		 5
Outstanding
*Our customers can complete their goals in any interaction channel that we support: phone, email, chat, fax, IM, SMS, forums, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
*We present our customers with a clear transition path to get from one interaction channel to another.
*We manage multiple interactions on the same topic across multiple channels as a single threaded interaction.
*We analyze our customers' channel preference on a regular basis and use that information to adapt our service channel offering mix.
*The language, information, and interaction context is consistent across all interaction channels.
*Responses to customer interactions are the same across all communication channels; a customer can get a confirmation of her interaction in any channel.
*We combine metrics across all channels to provide a holistic view of the customer experience.

2. Web Self Service

 1
Poor		 2
Below average		 3
Average		 4
Very good		 5
Outstanding
*We have a customer-facing knowledge base as part of our web self-service offering.
*Customer-facing content and agent-facing content is stored in the same knowledge base. We control the access of content based on role.
*Customers can use multiple retrieval methods, like search, browse, clarifying questions, and guided decision paths, to locate appropriate content in the knowledge base.
*Our customers can rate or comment on knowledge base content.

3. Self-service to live-service transition

 1
Poor		 2
Below average		 3
Average		 4
Very good		 5
Outstanding
*We allow our customers to request a callback if they are unable to find the information they need on our web self-service site.
*We allow our customers to chat with us if they are unable to find the information they need on our web self-service site.
*We allow our customers to email us if they are unable to find the information they need on our web self-service site.
*We transfer the web self-service session history to an agent for web self-service sessions escalated to an agent.

4. Phone channel delivery

 1
Poor		 2
Below average		 3
Average		 4
Very good		 5
Outstanding
*We use an IVR to enable customers to access the information they need via voice self-service. Customers can opt out of the IVR and be connected to a live agent at any point in time. 
*Our ACD provides intelligent call routing and queuing and prioritizes and balances call flow. We route calls based on customer needs and agent capabilities.
*We have implemented full CTI capabilities so that information from the caller, including previous call history, is transferred to the agent desktop (full screenpop) so that the customer does not have to repeat account numbers or other identifiers already typed into the keypad.
*Our customer service application has robust and sophisticated mobile device capabilities, including support for laptops and/or browsers for handheld devices like BlackBerry, iPhone, Nokia, Palm OS, and Windows Mobile.

© 2011 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Forrester, Forrester Wave, RoleView, Technographics, TechRankings, and Total Economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Reproduction or sharing of this content in any form without prior written permission is strictly prohibited. For additional reproduction and usage information, see Forrester's Citation Policy located at www.forrester.com. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change.