Customer Service Strategies will be Top Business Focus for 2010

  • Genesys identifies ways that businesses can improve the customer relationship and increase the bottom line by ⋹millions in the coming year
  • Better online experience for customers is key

MADRID, 9th December, 2009 — As companies prepare for 2010 and what could be a bleak first quarter, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, an Alcatel-Lucent company (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU), has identified customer service strategy as the key area that will help businesses succeed in the year ahead. In 2010, organisations should focus on enhancing company-wide operational performance to ensure that customers have an end-to-end experience. To achieve this, employees need to have the skills to engage dynamically with customers and the business should have in place more proactive customer engagement models – better online communication will be of key importance.

Organisations that are able to offer customers the same 'shop experience' on the web as they would do if a customer visited its high street branch would not only differentiate themselves from their competitors, but also see significant changes in their customer base, as well as demonstrable benefits to their bottom line. One such company who has achieved this is Vodafone Italy: a minimal investment in a proactive customer engagement model enabled it to bring a consumer's 'shop experience to the web' and deliver great results to both its customers – 68 percent of whom are 'very satisfied' with this new service – and its bottom line – a 25 per cent increase in sales.

"Working closely with over 400 leading organisations in Southern Europe, the downturn of 2009 put in focus the importance of how valuable a loyal customer base is to businesses," said Agostino Bertoldi, Vice President for Southern Europe at Genesys. "Lost customer relationships amount to millions of Euros. Our global consumer survey which we undertook with Datamonitor found that poor customer service in the European countries we studies falls just short of USD$100 billion a year – a substantial sum which a company, in the current state of play, would be foolish to ignore. This not only highlights the importance of how vital meeting customers' expectations and fulfilling their demands is, but also how crucial these have become in determining the success – and survival – of businesses.

"With constricted budgets a reality for many organisations in 2009, the Genesys Strategic Solutions Team helped organisations leverage their existing systems to get the most from their technology investments and deliver first class customer service. We’ve worked closely with some of Europe's leading organisations to help drive performance improvement, both in their contact centre operations and across their entire enterprise," continued Agostino Bertoldi.

Genesys believes there is a simple, three-pronged strategy organisations can adopt to address such issues:

1. Adopt proactive customer engagement models – to address the demands of the Millennial Generation (consumers born between 1982 and 2000), accustomed to using the Internet, web-chats, IM and email to communicate and who favour convenience over price as key driver in their purchasing decisions. Businesses should focus on taking care of existing and potential customers visiting their website – potentially the biggest shop they have! – and develop cohesive strategies that straddle all channels of customer communication, with a crucial focus on the web

2. Ensure an adequately skilled 'Millennial' workforce – that can respond effectively to 'modern' as well as traditional customer communication demands and meet consumers' single conversation, cross-channel expectations. Such an employee base would engage with customers more dynamically and provide the new customer experience environment businesses are increasingly expected to offer

3. Implement an end-to-end customer service delivery solution – that optimises all processes within a company by combining best practices and capabilities from a broader set of business processes and resources. Such a solution would provide added flexibility and real-time orchestration of tasks and priorities within the service delivery chain, not only enhancing certain features within the organisation and integrating with existing solutions, but ensuring that all business processes are optimised across the board

About Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc.
Genesys is the leading provider of software to manage customer interactions over the phone, Web and mobile devices. The Genesys software suite connects customers with the right resources – self-service, assisted-service and proactive outreach – to fulfill customer requests, optimise customer care goals and efficiently use resources. Genesys software directs more than 100 million customer interactions every day for 4,000 companies and government agencies in 80 countries. These companies and agencies can leverage their entire organisation, from the contact centre to the back office, to dynamically engage with their customers. As a result, Genesys stops customer frustration, drives efficiency and accelerates business innovation. For more information, go to www.genesyslab.com.

About Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) is the trusted partner of service providers, enterprises and governments worldwide, providing solutions to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. A leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP technologies, applications and services, Alcatel-Lucent leverages the unrivalled technical and scientific expertise of Bell Labs, one of the largest innovation powerhouses in the communications industry. With operations in more than 130 countries and the most experienced global services organisation in the industry, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with a global reach. Alcatel-Lucent achieved revenues of Euro 16.98 billion in 2008 and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris. For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on the Internet: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

Media Contact:
Manuela Whittaker
PR for Genesys Iberia
+44(0)1780 721 433
mwhittaker@iba-international.com

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