Lyse keeps customers on social media happy with Connect multi-channel contact centre solution from Intelecom

Lyse, a Norwegian industrial group operating in the energy and telecommunications industries, can now respond to customer enquiries regardless of which communication channel is used thanks to Connect from Intelecom. Connect is a multi-channel contact centre solution enabling agents to respond to voice calls, email and social media posts all from within the same application. As Lyse sees the popularity of social media for customer service increasing the flexibility and visibility provided by Connect is helping to keep customers happy.

The Lyse group was formed at the beginning of 1999 but its business goes back over 100 years. Orginally founded on the acquisition of waterfall rights, the construction of a hydroelectric plant and a network of power lines in the Sør-Rogaland region of Norway, the organisation has developed into a national renewable energy operator. In recent years the Group has developed a gas network in Sør-Rogaland and a liquified natural gas (LNG) business in the Nordic market. It is also the national leader for fibre-optic broadband. Early in 2014 one of the Group's companies, Altibox which delivers internet, TV and telephony services was recognised for providing the best social media customer service at the Social Media Days Awards in Oslo staged by specialist publication Kampanje.com.

The contact centre at Lyse is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and has approximately 80 fulltime equivalent contact centre agents. Enquiries into the contact centre cover the whole Lyse group including support for Altibox customers in terms of broadband, TV and telephony services. The main contact centre is in Stavanger with a smaller operation with around 22 agents based just outside the city. However, the two sites work as one and both use Connect, a cloud-based multi-channel contact centre solution from Intelecom. Since August 2013 Connect has also been used to control and respond to social media enquiries.

According to Lene Nordahl, Customer Service Manager at Lyse, "Prior to the implementation of Connect it was difficult to control social media interactions and to be sure they received a speedy response. Coupled with the lack of local support for our previous onsite ACD we realised we needed more flexibility and local support that would give us a true overall picture of enquiries coming into the contact centre in real-time and how they were being handled. We started using Connect late in 2011, switched over completely just a couple of months later and implemented the full multi-channel system in August 2013. We now offer a 24x7 response to social media enquiries in addition to traditional voice calls."

At the heart of customer service is fast response times and first time resolution. Prior to implementing the latest version of Connect social media enquiries were handled manually. This made it difficult for Lyse to check whether every post had been dealt with and how quickly a response had been sent. With an increased level of integration now available agents and management can access the detail on all posts even those previously received via Connect.

Lene Nordahl explained, "With Connect all social media enquiries regardless of channel go into the same queue. The agents can then select the most urgent enquiry which could be on Twitter, Facebook or maybe an email. The agents handling social media enquiries are highly skilled and receive special training. Their responses are important as they are freely accessible to the public and can quickly start trending for both good and not so good reasons. They also need to be skilled in conflict resolution as by its very nature social media can be very direct and more difficult to control if someone has a desire to drive negative action via social channels."

Lyse is currently receiving approximately 6000 social media contacts per month. Contacts include posts, comments and emails. While the number of calls received remains stable, at approximately 1300 calls per day, the number of social media contacts continues to rise as more customers come on board across all the different group companies.

A good example of how Connect helps agents is its ease of use. When a new message appears on the agent's desktop they simply open it, answer it and then close the message. Agents are safe in the knowledge that posts, comments and emails cannot be lost and are easily retrieved via Connect which gives them greater control and allows them to manage their own performance and workflow. Within the overview window, agents can see in real-time the status and activity of the queue's they are logged into and the current work status of their colleagues. Management can also see this activity and can add additional agents if required from other parts of the contact centre.

Lyse works with a third party to conduct customer service surveys and gets feedback from around 1200 customers per month across all the channels. The feedback is very positive on social media channels and as mentioned the group recently received an award for providing the best social media customer service¹.

Lene Nordahl continued, "When it comes to voice calls our biggest focus is on quality, first time resolution and customer satisfaction. We treat all customer communication channels in the same way. While service level agreements (SLAs) may vary according to the time of day, type of customer, type of enquiry and many more variables in such a large contact centre our customers expect exceptional service whatever the channel."

According to Gartner² "by 2015, businesses that lack an all-channel customer engagement strategy will lose 15% to 20% of their best customers to competitors that have such a strategy". Lyse is ahead of the game when it comes to social customer service and intends to continue to respond customers in their channel of choice. As Lene Nordahl concluded, "Across the group different departments including marketing, public relations and customer service are using social media to communicate with customers. It is all about collaboration in order to provide a complete customer experience 24x7 regardless of channel. Connect gives us the ability to ensure every customer receives a response in a timely manner and to manage our contact centre in real time across multiple channels."

¹Best social media customer service at the Social Media Days Awards in Oslo staged by specialist publication Kampanje.com
²Gartner: What You Need To Know About Social Media For Customer Service – 12 Sept 2014 Michael Maoz, Jenny Sussin