A daily digital culture for customers

Schneider Electric is leading the digital transformation in energy management and industrial automation to meet the future challenges of efficiency and sustainability across industries, buildings and homes. Customer-centricity is part of the very essence of the Schneider Electric brand, designing and marketing innovative connected products for homes, data centres, the service sector and infrastructure. Its solutions are marketed both directly to key accounts and through networks of distributors, installers, integrators, energy providers and craftsmen.

“With our connected technologies and customer support services, life is on everywhere, for everyone, at all times,” said Irina Zubova, Vice President, Digital Sales and Customer Support Enablement, E2E Digital Customer Relationship at Schneider Electric. “Our objective is to make both our equipment and our services increasingly digital for our customers. And at the same time, we are working hard to become the most digital company in our industry — transforming the experience of employees and especially the experience of customers.”

The group’s global digital transformation began several years ago with the company reaching a high level of digital maturity — which was demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic. On the one hand, the strategy aims to make Schneider Electric equipment and services increasingly digital. On the other, it seeks to transform the experience of employees and customers by providing seamless, omnichannel experiences with the offer of complete self-service via the mySchneider web portal.

“We are building the future of a new global experience,” said Irina. “We are evolving 7.5 million annual interactions to ensure that 60% of sales requests and 80% of support requests are fully digitalised by 2025.”

Simplifying in the cloud

To ease this transition, the company switched from the Genesys Engage on-premises solution to the Genesys Cloud platform. Reasons for moving to the cloud included simplifying the management of aging IT infrastructures, facilitating interconnections between countries (24/7 skill sharing), and easily implementing new contact centre functionality like new digital channels.

With a presence in more than 100 countries, Schneider Electric decided to implement a common CX foundation with the ability to customise according to local needs. A project was launched to harmonise and modernise tools across several countries. Success was defined around four pillars: increasing self-service, bringing in automation through digital and offline assistance, creating innovative contact centres as a true omnichannel hub, and improving outcomes through the identification of new sales opportunities obtained from conversations with teleconsultants.

“Our objective was above all to set up a logical customer support function with an omnichannel strategy, whatever the channel chosen by customers — web portal, bots, phone, email or chat,” said Jean-Pierre Nicolas, Customer Support — Project and Run, Digital Sales and Support at Schneider Electric.

“We wanted to handle real-time interactions through aggregated routing strategies directly to our agents and virtual agents,” added Jean-Pierre. “Genesys Cloud enabled all of this while maintaining the same ergonomic agent interface with zero risk. This cloud platform allows us to create a holistic customer experience and simplify maintenance.”

Broaden the range of channels with consistency

The variety of customer profiles led Schneider Electric to define differentiated service models across 13 support case categories: generalist pre-sales or after-sales (catalog questions), technical relating to products or application systems, commercial, order management and associated services, and special cases requiring premium support.

“We benefited from strong upstream collaboration and above all the involvement of Genesys architects and service professionals, both for the build and deployment stages,” said Jean-Pierre. “Customer requests are handled through our websites, mobile applications and within our 62 global contact centres.”

For inbound calls, the IVR has been redesigned to perform routing by keywords to reduce wait times. Schneider Electric has also implemented callbacks. In a second phase, the IVR redirects callers to self-service channels and virtual agents, resolving issues faster.

Now 3,200 employees working in 15 different languages use the Genesys Cloud solution to handle customer situations that require personalised service and inquiries. “Traditionally, inbound customer requests are mainly dealt with over email and the phone. However, over the last 12 months, we have seen a 6% increase in chat conversations,” said Jean-Pierre.

“Our customers expect us to help sustain the value of their investments in our equipment,” added Irina. “By offering ingenious, user-friendly, digital customer interactions that provide efficiency, we contribute to the profitability of our company and the satisfaction of our customers.”

Applying AI to automate digital customer experiences intelligently

The rise of AI-assisted bot services or web self-services has taken place gradually, driven by the project team.

“We are in a strong position to lead large-scale digital transformation for our customers, partners and employees through these innovations,” said Javier Campos, Principal Project Application Engineer at Schneider Electric.

The bots detect intentions that can be resolved by agents and, in turn, suggest the customer continues through a chat exchange. “We want to offer the possibility for customers to swap between self-services and personalised support while maintaining the same relationship,” said Jean-Pierre.

To further enhance the customer experience, Schneider Electric is exploring future AI capabilities like predictive routing and sentiment analysis for voice and chat interactions.

Providing employees with best-in-class work experiences

Capable of managing the entire customer experience, the Genesys Cloud platform has been integrated with the company’s Salesforce CRM system. Now, agents update information within a single interface. The open APIs of Genesys Cloud also greatly simplify ERP and other integrations as well.

By increasing agent efficiency through improved scheduling via Genesys Workforce Engagement Management, Schneider Electric can better support employee work-life balance and career opportunities. With new tools, agents are better prepared to deliver an exceptional experience with every interaction — through optimised touchpoints at every stage of the customer journey.

Agents are overwhelmingly positive about using Genesys Cloud, with 90% being satisfied with the transition. They enjoy the simplification, stability and improved performance of the solution.

“Our customers expect quality service and strong, long-term support before and after their purchase,” said Irina. “We will achieve these goals with the help of our amazing colleagues, along with our data-driven digital mindset and our ambition to harness the power of AI throughout our company.”

The company’s mySchneider portal provides a single entry point where customers can view their order, product and service information. In the past, agents would spend a lot of time on routine questions. But the company’s aim is to answer the most frequent and simple requests through self-service with dynamic FAQs, chat and bots via the website. This will allow agents to focus on the most complex requests or allocate time to prospects and outbound activities.

Schneider is looking to the future, where digital transformation creates more opportunities for self-service. “Within two years, we want 75% of customers with simple assistance requests to self-serve,” concluded Jean-Pierre.