Video streaming service.

The business need.

Following a high-profile advertising campaign, a  streaming video subscription provider was due to  launch to the UK market. Though it aimed to make  the service easy to use, it nonetheless needed  to ensure that support was available for its new  customers, particularly to help them get started  with the service. 

But with limited capital to invest, and limited  information available about the likely demand for  support, the provider couldn’t justify investing in  a traditional contact centre. Instead, with just two  months to go before its customer launch, it needed  an alternative approach. 

In its request for proposals, the business was clear  that it wanted an omnichannel support function,  as it expected email and social media to be key  channels. It also wanted a solution that could  scale easily to meet predicted growth in subscriber  numbers and to respond to peaks in demand. And it needed all of this to be working in eight  weeks’ time.

The solution.

Drawing on its experience as an AWS Select Consulting Partner, Connect  recommended putting the Amazon Connect contact centre at the core of the  solution. As well as providing the ability to scale up at speed on a technical  level, Amazon Connect offers an almost unique pricing model, based on usage  rather than agent numbers. For this streaming service, that meant that if  demand on the voice channel was low, then so would its costs be. 

Connect worked closely with  the company’s team to map  out potential user journeys and  ensure that its omnichannel  support – including the core  information available online – was  sufficiently strong that many  customers would choose to  interact that way. Several web  forms were developed to make  it easy to send different types of  feedback and enquiry. 

A third-party solution was  chosen to help manage  chat, email and social media  interactions, organising them  by customer rather than by  channel. This meant that, once  the platform was integrated with  the CRM platform, the business’s  agents would have a single view  of each customer’s interactions,  allowing them to personalise the  service offered each time. 

Connect also recommended Eleveo for quality management  and workforce optimisation.

Despite bringing together  different solutions, Connect was able to provide a working  beta solution within a matter of  weeks. This was then optimised  during testing to be ready for the  full launch.

Outcome.

The subscription streaming service went live on  schedule and from the outset the contact centre met all its KPIs, including customer satisfaction. The busiest channels, as predicted, were email and  social media, and the solution was comfortably  able to manage the volumes. Initially the majority of  contacts were support enquiries, but as the months  have gone by, the company is now benefiting from a  wide range of customer feedback.

The agents, who are provided by an outsourcer,  have found the contact handling interface easy to  use, indicating it compares well to other tools they  have used. Furthermore, because the Connect  solution was fully cloud-based, it could readily be  set up to support home working when COVID-19  restrictions made that necessary. 

As customer numbers have risen, the solution has  scaled up to support a larger team, but equally  importantly, it can flex in the short term to meet  peaks in demand. The company is now better able  to predict these – for instance, when new box sets  are made available – and can prepare in advance. A  web chat capability has also been added now that  demand patterns are more clearly established. 

With the solution meeting the client’s goals, the  contract has been renewed and Connect will  continue to support the company. In a further demonstration of the value of the  Connect solution, one of this client’s parent  companies has also chosen to create a clone of the  contact centre to add flexibility to its core customer  support operation.

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