Transforming contact centres into care centres

Groundbreaking B2C and D2C sales strategy

One of the world’s biggest home appliance manufacturers, Electrolux Group strives to improve everyday life for millions. The Swedish company embodies this guiding principle in every idea, product and human interaction. It competes in a fast-changing market, where customers regularly switch between visiting stores and shopping online.

Driven by the rise in eCommerce, Electrolux Group saw an opportunity to develop B2C and D2C channels — launching its Consumer Centric Transformation (ConCenT) program with the goal of getting closer to its customers and driving sales. Success meant redesigning its contact centres for greater efficiency and faster innovation.

“Old technology stood in the way of realising our B2C and D2C model,” said Mateusz Jazdzewski, Head of IT Consumer Solutions and Head of CX Product at Electrolux Group. “Our agents had to navigate between different channels and systems with no CRM integration and limited outbound, routing and reporting tools. So, we struggled to track journeys, increasing handle time and making service inconsistent.”

Tightly orchestrated digital journeys

Electrolux Group executed a threefold B2C and D2C strategy. “We wanted a cloud platform that combined omnichannel routing, AI-powered analytics and a unified agent desktop for managing the D2C sales funnel,” added Jazdzewski. “Genesys really embraced the challenge of having one synchronised agent screen. Yet, actually in the backend it handles lots of IT complexity, matching processes from different applications so it’s incredibly easy for the end user.”

Now deployed across 11 countries (with four more to follow in 2023), Genesys Cloud ensures efficient multitasking with inbound, outbound, email and chat conversations managed from a single desktop. Agents quickly collaborate with colleagues using the platform interface. Managers and supervisors always have visibility into what’s happening, instantly drilling down into reports and monitoring queues and workloads.

Voicebots and chatbots powered by Google Cloud Contact Centre AI (CCAI) detect customer intent and suggest self-service options, or intelligently route calls to the best specialist with the right skills.

“Thanks to the native integrations between Genesys and Google Cloud, it never felt like we were buying two separate products,” said Jazdzewski. “In fact, it allowed us to rationalise our IVR phone numbers and save money. Now, our consumers are taken care of immediately and don’t have to wait in queues. And the agent can open the conversation with ‘Hey, I can see your oven’s broken’ and start off on the right foot.”

Registered consumer product information is automatically stored in the CRM system and is used, for example, to pre-populate tickets and save agents time. And holistic understanding of the customer is based on combined data from virtual and live agents — rather than a single interaction.

“The introduction of Genesys and Google Cloud CCAI really changed everything,” added Jazdzewski. “It gives the customer the feeling that we know them as part of a much more personalised service. And when they reach a live agent they don’t have to repeat basic information. It’s really all about selecting the right offering and creating the right relationship, opening up potential up-selling opportunities.”

Better support for agents

Previously, agents were working on multiple different systems and windows, not knowing which system they would need during an interaction with a consumer. They relied largely on Post-it notes to remind them of the steps they needed to follow for each scenario. Aided by Genesys Agent Assist, insight is now automatically surfaced from the company’s SAP C4C and knowledge management systems, ensuring agents have all the information on one screen they need to resolve the consumer’s particular issue.

“With Genesys, we create one screen where only the relevant systems and tools are shown during that call,” said Gleb Klimenko, Consumer Channels Solution Lead at Electrolux Group. “Being able to solve the problem on the spot saves us money and gives the consumer a faster fix for less effort.”

In addition, Genesys Agent Assist supports agents with relevant information while they’re on calls. “Genesys Agent Assist helps to make the work of the agent more efficient by listening to the consumer and providing the articles that are relevant to solve their problem on the phone without sending a technician,” said Klimenko.

One of the most common reasons for contact is a repair inquiry regarding the warranty.

“After two or three months, we started to see Net Promoter Score go up and average handle time go down,” said Ekaterina Akimenko, Business Transformation Manager for Sales and Services at Electrolux Group. “It was especially important to see average handle time reduce on in-warranty repairs because that is pure cost for us. We’ve also seen an improvement in first-contact resolution — a metric that represents productivity and a better consumer experience.”

In addition, the Electrolux Group contact centre brings in revenue through its extended warranty sales, express repair and other services. “The best achievement from my point of view is that with the new Genesys infrastructure, we’re now able to turn our contact centre from cost centre to a profit centre,” said Akimenko.

Several months ago, Electrolux Group introduced Genesys Web Messaging as another way of boosting productivity and service efficiency. “The asynchronous nature of web messaging lets you return to conversations at exactly the same point you left off,” added Klimenko. “The solution was really easy to set up and we’ve had great feedback from agents. Web messaging has more features, like file sharing, and it has quick replies for the bot, which has helped decrease our average handle time.”

Completing the company’s B2C and D2C model, Genesys Predictive Engagement connects the dots on website journeys by leveraging artificial intelligence and analytics to uncover visitors’ behaviours and interests — and then personalises engagements in real time based on those insights.

“We noticed that we had quite high abandon rates and used Genesys Predictive Engagement to target UK consumers,” said Stefan Åhlstedt, European Contact Centre Sales Manager at Electrolux Group. “Now, when the consumer is on our webpages, we can see if we’re about to lose them and guide them to interact with us in the way we want. That’s achieved two things. We’ve reduced call and email traffic by around 20 percent. And, over the last two years, we’ve reduced the number of abandoned sessions by roughly 200 per month — and increased our sales conversions by 89 percent.”

Contact centres become care centres

Electrolux Group has exceeded its expectations with consistent journeys and reporting across all its channels. Service efficiency has also improved with a three-minute reduction in AHT. Before implementing Genesys, the company’s average handle time was over 12 minutes. Now with Genesys Cloud and Google Cloud CCAI, average handle time is under 9 minutes — a 25% reduction. Around 50-60 seconds of that savings is attributed to the voicebot, which starts off each call by identifying the customer and opening a new record in the CRM system if needed. During the first three months, the Google Cloud concierge bot successfully recognised over 75% of customer intents.

For instance, these intents included requests made in English and Italian for appliance repairs. “Bot intent recognition rose and, in some cases, reached almost 100% as we added use cases and training,” said Jazdzewski. Reduced handle time has also created valuable headroom for agents to offer more paid services, like extended warranties and express repairs.

Employee satisfaction has improved, too. “Agents have responded very positively,” said Jazdzewski. “Genesys Cloud has improved their day-to-day work with shortcuts and better search capabilities and wrap-up tools.” Data is easily cross-referenced between Genesys, Google Cloud and CRM systems, reducing agent frustration. And supervisors have better visibility into interactions. They now use call and screen recordings to accurately pinpoint coaching opportunities.

“We’ve transformed Italian and UK contact centres into data-driven care centres,” concluded Jazdzewski. “We can clearly link events, see why conversations did or didn’t convert into sales, and learn how to create better experiences next time. We’re excited to roll out these capabilities into other regions in the near future.”