A Case Study With Unymira: The One Stop Shop For Digital Customer Service Solutions

It seems as if every morning we wake up and prepare for another day of remote work, we’re reminded of a situation that we have no control over. We’re reminded of a pandemic that has no end in sight. With more than enough negatives to reflect on (plummeting financial forecasting, unpredictable shifts in consumer behavior, mandated confinement, etc.), I want to highlight a more positive, empowering takeaway.

The pandemic is bringing us together in ways customer experience analysts didn’t foresee. Maybe not in terms of immediate physical closeness, but in terms of big picture optimism for the future of our community. It’s speeding up technological advancement for customer-centric businesses that previously had the luxury of remaining complacent. We’re adapting to new procedures and standards that operationalize the way we contact customers, what we know about them, and how we serve them. 

COVID-19 is forcing us to acknowledge necessary changes to get through these trying times, changes that will make us better when the end is in sight – not because we will resort back to the previous norms of business technology and contingency plans, but because we will have defined a new one. 

The Unymira platform

A perennial top priority for contact centers, knowledge management has gained particular urgency amid COVID-19. It is the foundation of how we adapt to changes in market conditions, customer expectations, agent needs and new policies. To learn more about the impact of knowledge management on short - and long-term results, CCW Digital has recently been in contact with Unymira, the leading enterprise KM platform.

When I interviewed the Unymira executive team on the biggest problem in today’s contact center, customer service expert and North America sales director Chris Rall confirmed the contact center’s current obstacles: 

Currently everyone has shifted their contact center to a remote environment. This brings different challenges: How can I manage my workforce? Do they have all the technology they need to perform their work? How can I handle increased call volume? (especially in affected industries like travel).

Of course this also brings some problems with it: Companies realize how scalable they are and how current their technology stack really is. The greatest challenge is for companies that haven’t invested into technology and cloud adoption in the previous years - they’re suddenly struggling to get their agents ready to work. Companies that maybe in a good shape from a technology standpoint, might struggle with improving or offering  self-service.  

The overwhelming majority of Digital Transformation initiatives do not reach their intended results, according to the Harvard Business Review, Deloitte and the WSJ. Common misconceptions about knowledge management solutions embody this concept of failed digital transformation. Never has this concept been more relevant in today’s era of remote contact centers and digital working environments. 

As we take our best crack at digital transformation throughout COVID-19 (and beyond), rely on the resources that will provide you with the security your business continuity plan deserves. Don’t merely react to the market of the contact center, or any industry for that matter. Use the pandemic to set the standard.

Digital transformation and knowledge management

“One of the biggest challenges of any organization that I’ve been a part of… is the organization, overall, embracing the idea of digital transformation [such as KM]… The companies that are out there succeeding right now - they’re not reactionary. They’re more proactive.” – Jeff Lienhart, President of Adidas Golf, Jeff Lienhart recently told us, as seen in a CCW Digital report. 

Like most digital transformation initiatives, the ultimate challenge in knowledge management is aligning the right strategic mindset with readily available automation that end-users are inadvertently demanding, especially in remote environments and challenging economic times.

Unymira is the one stop shop for digital customer service solutions. Their comprehensive knowledge management platform is unique in the current market to say the least, offering decision trees, artificial intelligence, self-service, chatbots, social media integration and more. Simply put, they enable customer service agents to find accurate and up-to-date answers quickly, every time. Contact centers worldwide are now using this software to maximize productivity, reduce workload and offer timely and consistent support in every channel while boosting key KPIs.

CCW Digital's new market study confirms that many companies are heavily relying on digital channels and self-service to weather the current storm. This makes the importance of having an omnichannel, user-friendly, AI-driven KM solution even more important.

In 2016, the global knowledge management market was valued around USD 206,900 million. By 2025, it is expected to reach over USD 1,232,000 million and is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 22% between 2017 and 2025.

The fact that many organizations recognize the underlying need for knowledge management as a must-have tool sheds light on the shift from quality KM as an ideal competitive advantage, to the primary infrastructure for profitability in the contact center, said Rall. 

Knowledge Management is part technology, part process. It demands ongoing attention, resources and commitment. Delivering accurate support data quickly in every channel every time is the central goal of customer service. 

If you’re willing to invest in the resources, it will tremendously boost your overall CX and quickly deliver a high ROI, says Rall. But don’t just take his word for it, take his client’s. 

Success Stories

Founded in 1926 and headquartered in Monroe, Wisconsin, Colony Brands is a successful, multifaceted enterprise consisting of numerous retail brands, operational support companies and affiliate businesses. Through catalog and online shopping, Colony Brands offers a wide range of products including apparel, home décor, outdoor, health and beauty, electronics, toys and food.

Being a mail-order and e-commerce company with no physical stores, delivering excellent customer experiences is critical for repeat business and customer satisfaction. Colony Brands recently recognized the opportunity for improvement and quickly prioritized the change. This impacted both the consumer as well as agents who expected a “Google-like search” in their business tools. Knowledge Center offers the same simple yet powerful search including tolerance of misspellings, synonyms and incomplete phrases. 

Moreover, it actively learns from user behavior, constantly improving autocomplete and auto suggest features. This led to a dramatic cut in search time, effort and call handling time, not to mention much happier agents

The transition to a professional knowledge management system meant deciding what to do with over 900 documents that had accumulated over the years. Unymira’s on-site consultants developed a migration plan and recommended first manually reviewing existing material before migration to avoid potentially importing duplicate, outdated and low-quality documents.

Ultimately, Colony Brands reduced its customer support documents by 59% from 961 to 395 documents, while simultaneously increasing the quality of the remaining ones. Agents immediately benefited from the drastically faster search, document quality and accessibility, ultimately improving efficiency, CSAT in interactions, and revenue. 

Deutsche Telekom AG is a German telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn and by revenue, the largest telecommunications provider in Europe. Deutsche Telekom was formed in 1995, as the former state-owned monopoly Deutsche Bundespost was privatised

72 hours after a completed service inquiry, the customer receives a personalized message from the new chatbot, Horst, written in a relaxed and fun style. Horst is responsible for all customer satisfaction surveys. With the help of Unymira, Telekom’s chatbot is now a further innovative building block in their overall customer service vision and strategy, which has been systematically expanded over the years. In addition to the chatbot, their multifaceted customer care plan uses Unymira’s Knowledge Connect, a social media customer service tool to centrally manage and reply to requests from Facebook, Twitter, forums, blogs and the Telekom’s internal support community. Requests are analyzed and forwarded automatically to the relevant customer service team, embodying an omnichannel customer experience. 

To strike the right balance between creating value with automation but still respecting customers and avoiding impersonal mass communication, Telekom analyzed which classic service processes could be partially automated. In order to maintain a high level of person-to-person service, it was decided that only an isolated and independent process should be automated. Therefore, they selected a uniform customer satisfaction survey across all social media channels.

Although the chatbot is an automated solution, it is just one part of the overall customer service process. Therefore, it works as part of a team and follows built-in escalation points when a customer should be handed off to a human agent. It analyzes customer responses to decide whether clarification is required and what next actions to take. 

Using the chatbot, it can quickly identify and forward cases that still require a follow-up leading to increased long-term customer satisfaction. The 5 Star chatbot’s personality stands out in particular, being built with its own unique character and language style. This makes him both recognizable and more relatable for customers. He immediately identifies himself as a bot (something many contact centers fail to recognize), contributing to an acceptance rate of 75%. 

Classic customer satisfaction surveys via email have an average answer rate of 3% to 5%. Horst’s response rate is a whopping 35%, between 7 and 10 times higher than the average. Within just a few months of launch, it generated over 5,000 customer responses. 

Moving forward

Unymira’s platform has provided clients: 

• 40% higher first contact resolution rates due to having built-in editorial checks, feedback and great search for finding the right documents the first time
• Up to 80% less documents 
• Up to 80% faster onboarding due to having a single system, powerful search and integrated e-learning

Unymira website: unymira.com

Unymira USU Linkedin: unymira US

Unymira Twitter: @unymira_US

In uncharted waters during times of distress and uncertainty, it’s important to stay connected. The CCW Digital community will be here for you, providing you with customer experience, contact center, and digital marketing resources every step of the way. In remote working environments and challenging economic circumstances, remember to lean on your digital community to come out stronger on the other side. 

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For media coverage, lead gen, and digital marketing inquiries, contact me at matt.wujciak@customermanagementpractice.com.