HFS Highlight: Can EXL’s CONNECx connect the dots for the OneOffice customer experience?

Increasingly in this remote and fluid workplace and consumer environment we’ve adopted as normal, companies seek to better understand and connect with their customers and employees within the new paradigm of fully digital experiences.    While CX transformation has allegedly been on the agenda for many years, it seems to finally have its burning platform for real change.  Look no further than the rapid wholesale shift to work from home contact centers have experienced, even for the stodgiest firms which rejected the model for years.  As such, providers have been required to reconfigure how they approach customer experience service in light of the new reality.  EXL’s CONNECx is the firm’s refreshed offering to help its clients tackle their biggest CX challenges.

Moving from butts in seats to intelligent engagement design

At the very core of our OneOffice messaging which first emerged 5 years ago is a fundamental breakdown in siloes, particularly as it pertains to connecting the back and front offices.  Functions that historically had no workflow or communication with one another now must learn how to work together and align to business outcomes centered around the customer.  One of the fundamentals of CONNECx is around connecting critical information to improve CX, including digging out contact drivers which feed into a continuous improvement loop.  These engagements are poised to empower human agents as well as provide the design and execution for automated and self-service options; to move from transactional to value-driven interactions which improve employee and customer experience.

EXL CONNECx is built upon the following pillars, visualized as spokes around the CONNECx hub:

• Connected Strategy: Beginning with a connected strategy, EXL is taking a consultative approach, drawing from IT and business resources, benchmarking and best practices to develop a roadmap for executing on customer experience transformation.

• Connected Data and Insights: What EXL is best known for.  Using the power of its analytics talent, EXL is identifying the optimal data strategy and governance to produce actionable insights for CX initiatives.

• Connected Interactions. This is the “omnichannel” puzzle that every contact center provider is bringing its own flavor to solve: customer engagement needs to not just be present on the channels where customers want service, but seamless flow and context between them.  This also includes the interplay between ‘digital associate’ conversational bots and human representatives.  A highlight of this pillar is Exelia.AI™, the brainchild of EXL’s partnership with IPsoft’s Amelia.

• Connected Operations. EXL’s AI-powered Management Information Assistant (MIA) provides a real-time view of the customer journey, with the goal to connect processes in the back office which impact the customer experience and proactively handle potential roadblocks on the customer journey. MIA will also make a recommendation about whether an interaction should go to a bot or a human.

• Connected EX and CX. This pillar is another piece of music to our ears, as HFS’ OneOffice mantra is no longer just about connecting back to front, but also about aligning CX and EX by empowering employees to deliver excellent customer experiences.  EXL’s Digital Virtual Assist (DIVA), is an AI-based agent augmentation tool that gives human representatives guidance and recommendations for how to best handle the conversation.

 Introducing the above elements to client engagements is an incremental approach toward transformation and starting to have a significant impact.  The full suite of capabilities is visualized in Exhibit 1 below.

Exhibit 1: EXL’s CONNECx in its entirety is a holistic approach to CX transformation

The Bottom Line: CONNECx has the potential to elevate customer experience for impact on the top and bottom line

Realistically, holistic adoption of all 5 capabilities is going to take some time for clients to warm up to, and most are likely to start with one or two to address certain piecemeal issues and test the water.  But early use cases and pilots are compelling, with some significant business outcomes achieved.  A UK-based utility company using Connected Data and Insights and Connected Operations has had great success with identifying call drivers, which when fed back through a continuous improvement loop proactively ameliorated certain billing issues which were increasing customer effort and call volume.  Examples like this have effects not just from a call deflection/cost savings standpoint, but also have a considerable impact on customer effort and thence on loyalty and satisfaction. More importantly, this kind of strategic thinking around connecting front and back-office data and employee and customer experience indicates the beginning of a real shift in thinking away from FTE and cost containment focus, toward real digital transformation that’s long overdue in the contact center.