Unleasing IT Article

Unleashing IT, Cloud Edition
Volume 4, Issue 3
Taking retail customer
experience to the next level
Cisco and Intel® partnering in innovation
How women’s fashion brand Talbots is transforming its multichannel customer
service with a cloud-based contact center solution.
Talbots is a women’s fashion retailer.
Established in 1947, the brand is known for
impeccably tailored wardrobe essentials and
personalized service. Today, there are nearly
500 Talbots stores in the U.S. and Canada,
an online store at talbots.com, and a global
direct sales operation that circulates about
60 million catalogs each year.
• Online shopping and the growth of mobile have shifted a portion of sales to the Internet from other traditional channels.
• To better support sales across online, catalog, and in-store channels, Talbots adopted a cloud-based contact center solution.
“Contact centers really determine the
customer’s perception of a business
because frontline agents are often the
main interaction point. And they should
therefore be seen as brand ambassadors,”
says Aphrodite Brinsmead, a senior analyst
with Ovum, which is focused on customer
engagement trends and research. “So it’s
absolutely critical that businesses deliver
personalized service in the communications
channels that their customers prefer—
whether it’s online chat, social, text
message, email, video, or phone.”
She adds that cloud-based contact center
solutions offer fast access to new technology
capabilities and channels, with the ability to
scale up or down as business needs change.
SEAMLESS CONNECTIONS IN THE
CLOUD
The Talbots customer support center had
been operating on outdated technology
for multichannel phone interactions. The
system was inflexible and offered only
limited integration with email, chat, and other
contact channels.
•
Instead of upgrading its on-premises technology, Talbots opted for a contact center-as-service using the Cisco® Hosted Collaboration Solution, which delivers the advanced capabilities of Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise.
• Talbots engaged Cameo Global to deliver CloudBlu, a Cisco Powered™, cloud-based contact center solution.
Unleashing IT, Cloud Edition
Volume 4, Issue 3
Integrating and automating
a data center
What sold the retailer was the seamless
link CloudBlu would provide between its
in-house call center and call outsourcing
partner, ContactUs.com.
“We’re connected to ContactUs.com in a
virtual system that gives us a single point
of view to see all call agents across the
enterprise—their availability, intraday work
status, and skill levels¬—so we can route
calls more strategically and quickly,” says
Wes Powell, vice president of customer
service at Talbots. “It’s more efficient to
manage our internal and external call teams
when we operate under a single process.
Because it’s such a seamless connection,
customers receive a consistent experience
regardless of where the call is answered.”
•
The solution’s VoIP system allows Talbots to record more calls and apply speech analytics to listen for speech tags or themes they may want to investigate.
•
Talbots can collaborate with ContactUs.
com to listen for customer comments that tie back to products and shopping experience, and make upstream changes based on this customer feedback.
• Dynamic, real-time reporting has replaced the inflexible, methodical reports of the past.
• The chat application is more configurable than the retailer’s previous system.
“We can tailor our proactive chat offers to
better meet the needs of our customers,”
says Powell. “If we anticipate a customer
may ask for assistance while she is shopping
online, for example, we can use chat to
maximize her experience as she completes
her purchase.”
PERFECTING THE DIRECT SHOPPING
EXPERIENCE
The Talbots direct sales operation includes
print and online catalogs, subscriber emails,
social sites, and other direct mail strategies
that drive customers to purchase items
through the retailer’s toll-free number or
website.
Cisco and Intel® partnering in innovation
LEARN MORE
The powerful CloudBlu platform that
enables Talbots customer care can be
configured for almost any business. For
more information, contact Cameo Global
at exec.sales@cameoglobal.com.
Before moving to a cloud contact center,
however, Talbots was limited in its ability to
route calls strategically, considering both call
type and agent skill sets. This made it difficult
to be dynamic in helping in-store customers
who needed contact center assistance.
“With the integrated cloud system, we can
support in-store shoppers more seamlessly
and sell from cross-enterprise inventories,”
Powell says. “If a customer can’t find the
exact size or color in a particular store, we
can search the distribution center or other
stores and send it to her. It helps us build
that customer relationship by providing
a consistent experience no matter what
channel she’s shopping in.”
He adds that the retailer plans to test more
self-service options in stores, utilizing mobile
technologies and tapping into enterprise
inventories with contact center support.
“I’m excited about how cloud technology
supports our efforts to improve process
efficiencies and enhance the customer
experience,” Powell says. “It helps us
differentiate Talbots by the level of service we
can offer customers.”
This article first appeared in Unleashing IT Volume 4, Issue 3, and online at www.unleashingit.com, available after subscribing at www.unleashingit.com/LogIn.aspx.
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