Welcome to Eptica Multi Channel Customer Service Software. Web Self-service, Email Response Management, Live Chat and Customer Service Knowledgebase.

3. Case Study

webmaster — 2009-02-12T20:31:00Z

Hotels.com, the world's most visited hotel booking site*, uses Eptica to manage online enquiries in 9 languages and drive operational efficiency.

Hotel.com uses five outsourced multi-lingual contact centres, in different country locations, serving 32 points of sale. Hotel.com's websites handle millions of accommodation searches every year. Every inbound enquiry is a potential sale, or a booking question, that needs to be handled accurately and fast.

A robust solution was needed to manage inbound enquiries in multiple languages, with the capability to easily add more as hotel.com expands. The ability to have global visibility of the distribution, resourcing and management of all enquiries is essential.

Hotels.com uses different outsourced contact centre operations located in Spain, Bangalore, Sweden, Ireland and Germany. The combination of multi-lingual agents available to handle incoming enquiries at each contact centre varies at any one time. It's a challenge to monitor email volume, know how much resource is being utilised and how effectively agents are responding.

Using Eptica, online enquiries are now automatically routed from the various hotel.com sites to the most appropriate agent, according to their language, expertise, availability, and also the email address and content of the request. Agents are automatically provided with a detailed client history, enabling them to see a complete picture of any interactions the customer has already had with hotels.com.

The system uses a single knowledgebase, shared by all five contact centres, which holds customer service information and templates for email replies in nine languages. Eptica's multilingual semantic processing engine is able to: automatically analyse the content of an inbound message; know the language; understand the message; and route it to an agent with the appropriate language skills, along with the recommended best answer from the knowledgebase in the corresponding language. The system has led to significantly improved transaction times and more efficient utilisation of agent resources.

Agents can tailor email templates in order to send personalised responses. Every interaction improves the quality and relevance of the knowledgebase, enabling all agents to provide consistent service, regardless of location and language. From one system, Hotels.com is able to monitor the quality of service delivered by all the contact centres and yield an invaluable source of insight about customer issues and requirements.

Having a detailed view of email volumes and what enquiries are about, enables Hotels.com to quickly identify and rectify issues created by their own operations, such as changes to web sites, which drive up customer interactions.

Visibility of average handling times, resolution rates and agent workload is provided through Eptica reporting, allowing Hotels.com to monitor performance and set KPIs accordingly. Reuben Goldsmith, call centre operations director at Hotels.com explains: “We can now track performance in real-time and create improvement plans to ensure we meet first contact resolution standards.”

The Eptica system is able to handle enquiries in 20 languages, from standard European languages to Thai and Vietnamese, and provides plenty of scope for hotels.com to expand into new regions. Reuben Goldsmith adds: “The Eptica system has been specifically tailored to the needs of Hotels.com and presents a scalable solution to grow with our business. It will ensure that we continue to deliver high quality customer service to the enquiries we receive.”

*Hotels.com website is the most visited in the ‘Hotels/Accommodation provider' category, according to comScore Media Metrix.

“Eptica enables us to manage email from 32 websites, in 9 languages. As the world's most visited hotel booking site, Eptica was the only solution able to meet our requirements.”

Ursula Toulson Director of operations programme management Hotels.com

2. Email Management Features

webmaster — 2009-02-12T20:30:57Z

Eptica raises the standard on email answers
For a customer, there is nothing worse than receiving an email reply through an automated system which doesn't answer their question. Too many email systems use automation to handle high volumes of emails faster, but fall way short on delivering accurate answers. If the system makes too broad an analysis of meaning, a high proportion of customers will receive inappropriate generic responses. There's no point in handling email in this way because it simply causes customers to send repeat emails or make phone calls when they don't get a complete resolution.

Advanced semantic processing
Eptica Email Management™ utilises a highly advanced semantic processing engine to extract deeper and more accurate meaning from customers' email text and improve the quality of information delivered through your email channel. It suggests answers to customers before they submit their enquiry to the contact centre. It identifies questions that are easy to resolve with automated responses with a high degree of accuracy. It improves the speed and consistency of agent assisted enquiries by automatically providing them with the best response from a knowledgebase of pre scripted email replies.

Intelligent routing
Highly intelligent and configurable routing can automatically assign queries to agents according to each customer's profile and each agent's competence.

Response management workflow
The management of email and other text based interactions is handled through a centralised knowledgebase and powerful workflow that ensures responses to customers are accurate, consistent and timely: even when customers cross from one channel to another, or enquiries are referred out of your contact centre for handling.

Comprehensive enquiry history
With each inbound email, agents can be presented with as much information about the enquiry as possible, such as: the customer's account details; the enquiry's full history (an enquiry can contain several email exchanges regarding the same issue between the customer and the contact centre) the customer's past service history; a list of all other queries from the same customer waiting to be processed; and a summary of the customer's specific needs and interests: this is done by analysing the client's navigation path and/or a textual analysis of the customer's query.

Dynamic, self-learning knowledgebase
The Eptica knowledgebase learns, from the way it is used, which email responses are best for answering specific questions. As agents use, edit and create new replies, these interactions with the knowledgebase continuously enhance and refine the relevance of content. Agents can recommend new content to the workflow as they receive new questions, which they don't have information for, helping to keep the knowledgebase up-to-date as they work.

Agents can also draw on the knowledgebase for fast answers to enquiries simply by typing natural language questions in their own words.

Personalised responses
Agents can personalise pre-scripted templates, add web links, and attach documents from a resource library.

Automatic responses
Reduces contact centre workload by dealing with specific types of requests that do not need agent intervention such as: notifying change of address, requesting password, asking for product literature.

Query escalation to supervisor A query escalated by an agent to a supervisor is handled by workflow to ensure the query is fully managed and returned to the agent, with corrections and advice notes. Or, if the supervisor deems the agent's reply to be correct, it is approved, and automatically sent to the customer.

Escalation to external experts
Queries can be escalated from the contact centre to internal staff or even outside the organisation (such as through a trade partner or intermediary) to persons with skills sets identified by Eptica Email Management™. The system sends the query to the person's email inbox and routes the reply through Eptica Email Management™. All exchanges are logged and tracked to provide a complete view of all exchanges between the company and its customers.

Customisable email forms
Email forms can be customised to carry your company's brand look and feel. Additionally, forms can be designed to collect additional information from the customer that can be used to assist agents in answering the enquiry and fed into CRM systems, such as product codes and account numbers.

Comprehensive dashboard
Presents key performance indicators such as the average time taken to process requests and number of request s remaining in the queue. Agents can also have their own personal page showing their own productivity rates.

Dynamic information push
Targeted, tailored messages can be automatically included in email acknowledgements and replies. Automatically include personalised information about special offers, loyalty points or renewal dates. Up sell and cross sell by displaying promotional offers relevant to the customers' interest. Automatically insert a link to a customer satisfaction survey to collect customer feedback.

Monitor contact centre activity in real-time
Supervisors can discretely view agents' responses and automatically check each agent's performance history. Potential problems can be quickly identified and resolved.

Supervisor statistics
Access over 50 web-based reports, available in real-time or pre-run for key indicators such as volumes, productivity, quality of service, subject matter, most frequently used predefined responses, and more.

1. Email Management

Annick — 2009-02-12T20:30:55Z

When your customers send you an email, they want a quick and relevant answer. If they're left waiting too long, or receive a reply that doesn't answer their question, they're likely to phone, or email again - a recipe for increasing customer frustration and the workload in busy contact centres.

Eptica Email Management™ tackles these issues by improving email handling efficiency and the quality of your agents' email replies. Expect to reduce repeat emails by 25%, cut email handling time by as much as half, and achieve an overall reduction in inbound contact, including phone calls.

Eptica Email Management goes beyond simply managing email volume and routing. It uses intelligent semantic processing, normally utilised by advanced search engines, and a dynamic customer service knowledgebase to manage customer email interaction. As a result, your customers will receive faster, more accurate answers.

Your Eptica Email Management solution can also take you on the journey to online self-service – by using your replies to inbound queries to build a searchable knowledgebase of customer service information which your customers can easily access online. Your call and email volumes will immediately decline as customers begin to find the answers they want on your Web site.

Eptica enables your Web and customer service channels to work together to improve customer engagement, give customers better information, resolve enquiries faster and maximise every sales opportunity.