Boosting the customer adoption of digital support channels

Abstract

Proximus is a mobile telecommunications firm in Belgium. The company is a part of the parent organization Proximus Group, which was previously referred to as the Belgacom Group. With over two million customers, Proximus is the largest telecom operator in the country with its headquarters based in Brussels. Proximus faces fierce competition from other telecom firms, such as Orange Belgium, Telenet, Voo and many others. Proximus was established in 1994, which was part of the subsidiary called Belgacom Mobile. Many momentums followed in the next years, such as the firm being the first mobile telephony operator to offer 3G services to general public in Belgium in 2005. In the following years, Belgacom, now Proximus Group, acquired many organizations, such as Scarlet NV in 2008, and consequently expanded its parent organization. In 2021, new innovations were launched including the teleconsultation app Doktr, the sustainable banking app Banx and the launch of two joint ventures to accelerate the fiber roll-out. The current board of directors includes Guillaume Boutin, as CEO of the Proximus Group alongside many others (Proximus Group, n.d.). Our mission at Proximus for our In-Company Project is to boost the adoption of the digital support tools, namely the FAQ pages on the website, the MyProximus app and the Proximus Virtual Assistant, for current residential customers. This problem statement is further defined into five research questions, covering the awareness of the digital tools, gains and pains customers at Proximus might experience using the support tools, the reason why clients still use the call centre the most out of all the support channels, the future behaviour of clients in terms of the usage of digital support tools and what the behaviour is of customers at competitors or in other industries. To provide an answer to the research questions, insights from a wide variety of sources were analysed, more specifically from academic literature, internal and external research, an Ad Hoc VoC (Voice of The Customer) survey and a Benchmarking survey. Firstly, some academic papers and business papers were investigated in which gains and pains were uncovered about the application and chatbot. Moreover, some general insights about the rise of the digital support tools and customer decision making behaviour and perceptions of digital channels are defined and discussed. On the one hand, for applications, the convenience, ease of use and personalization are three examples of gains found in the literature. Convenience, human interaction, miscommunication, and high effort reflect, on the other hand, the perceptions of customers about chatbots. Secondly, market trends reports are discussed in which an omnichannel strategy is stated to be key when trying to provide the best experience to customers across all touchpoints in their journey. Another trend discovered is personalization and the uprise of proactive communication to offer an effortless customer service to clients. The importance of human interaction, through voice bot, for instance, is also highlighted. Thirdly, the Voice of the Customer dashboards, which is an internal source of information at Proximus, offers findings in the use of digital support tools. Around 58% of Proximus customers do not use any digital channel before calling the call centre. When focusing on the website, only 40% of clients are satisfied when looking for Sensitivity: Confidential - Not for you? Notify the sender and delete. See more on https://www.proximus.com/respect-confidentiality support, while the app is rarely considered by them when seeking help. Even though the chatbot is mostly used for getting help, a low satisfaction is observed when only a robot is involved. Fourthly, the management dashboard in Adobe looks into the behaviour of customers on the Proximus website and mobile application. It is found that 28% of clients land on the website after an organic search. Also, customer intents regarding the website and the chat are identified, which shows a high number of visits for the billing section, but no other support section ranks high in the most visited sections. Fifthly, two internal research conducted in 2019 and 2022 are included in the report. The research from 2019 analysing the drivers and barriers for online sales and servicing at Proximus, uncover the easiness to use, the efficiency and the trust as three main criteria for the adoption of digital channels. The results of the Digital Maturity Index from 2022 will be included in the overview of all Verbatims at the end of this section. Sixthly, a benchmark of telco operators in Belgium and other countries as well as firms in other industries provides insightful information. For the competitive landscape in Belgium, a main outcome are the strategies about pushing the digital tools more than the physical ones at, for instance, Telenet. Moreover, differences across FAQ webpages between all firms active in the telecom industry are present. A good practice to take out, is the clear explanation of advantages and practicalities per digital channel offered by Telenet. When comparing Proximus to global telco players, the content format, as well as the wide variety of new features in their apps differentiates these latter from their competitors. Once again, emphasizing the benefits of the channels but also loyalty programs are used in other industries to attract customers into using their digital support tools more. Seventhly, the findings of the Ad hoc VoC survey reveal that the willingness to use the website in the future is lower for Millennials compared to any other generation. When looking at the MyProximus application, this tool is the most known among Millennials, which goes hand in hand with the higher awareness for the channel by these latter and by Generation X. Moreover, for these two generations, the willingness to use the tool in the future is the highest. However, it must be noted that a low number of people mentioned to use the app for support purposes. Lastly, younger generations have a higher tendency to look for support via the chatbot, while a significantly lower willingness to use is found for Baby Boomers. Eighthly, some conclusions can be drawn from the Benchmarking survey. For the call centre, older generations and less tech-savvy customers seem to call more. Looking at the website, younger generations, as well as people who perceive themselves as more tech-savvy use the channel more when seeking support. The MyProximus application is preferred by tech-savvy peoples, since they mentioned they would be willing to use it more in the future than people who don’t perceive themselves as tech-savvy. Likewise, more tech-savvy customers will use the chatbot more than non-tech-savvy clients. Across several surveys, Verbatims were analysed and coded to reveal the gains and pains for each tool. The gains for the call centre focus primarily on the human interaction, the convenience, and the habit. However, even if this support tool is used the most, customers are dissatisfied with the long waiting queues for this channel. When Sensitivity: Confidential - Not for you? Notify the sender and delete. See more on https://www.proximus.com/respect-confidentiality looking at the website, the convenience, autonomy, structure, and the lack of technical issues are highly appreciated in contrast to the high effort to find relevant and clear information or the inability to find any answer at all. The convenience and clarity of the information are positively perceived by clients for the MyProximus app, compared to the unsatisfaction of customers with the technical issues, the relevance of the answers found and the high effort to find information on this same tool. For the chatbot, the 24/7 availability and convenience are the gains stated by the customers. Nonetheless, the pains are the miscommunication, the lack of human interaction and the inability to find an answer for this digital tool. To solve the low awareness of the digital tools for support, while highlighting the gains and solving the pains, several recommendations are provided. To reduce the number of interactions with the call centre, we advise informing the customers of the digital tools when waiting on the phone and to use the Proximus agents in the call centre and shops as digital advocators for the digital support channels. The website should be improved through a tailor-made quiz that gives the opportunity to customers to navigate the website more easily. Interactive videos are also suggested to provide a quicker and more personalized customer service. The proposed SEO campaign tackles the inability to find relevant and clear information from the start of their browsing journey. The recommendations for the application cover the technical issues, as well as the lack of awareness of the tool for support by facilitating the download of the app through a QR code promoted on the website. The proactive pop-up notifications in the app and the personalized FAQ interface will lower the effort for customers to find relevant responses. Furthermore, the new version of the guide for new users in the app will increase the low awareness of the support section within the tool. Lastly, less miscommunication in the chatbot will be achieved through a button-based menu, while the unsatisfaction regarding the lack of human interaction will be solved by giving a name and face to the bot. By combining both a text and voice recognition option for the chatbot the probability of having no answer after an interaction with the digital channel will be significantly reduced.