Digital operations: definition and implementation

Are you ready to take your operations to the digital age? It's time for a crash course in digital operations. In this article, we'll be exploring what exactly digital operations are and how you can implement them in your business. We'll examine the advantages that come from migrating to an automated system and discuss how to get started. So buckle up, because it's time to explore the amazing world of digital operations.

What are digital operations and digital transformation?

Digital operations are all about leveraging technology to improve the way we work and run businesses. This means utilizing modern tools to streamline processes, increase efficiency, and create a more customer-centric approach. By applying innovative technologies, tools, and solutions, companies can become more agile, competitive, and responsive to market changes. The goal is also to improve the agent experience and work towards an effortless agent experience where they can focus on helping the customers with their queries instead of admin, processes, translation, finding forms, etc.  

In order to get there you need to go through digital transformation. That is the process of assessing your business to see where it makes sense to implement automatization and digital operations. An easy mistake to make is to automate and digitize everything and anything. That’s why you need an experienced partner like Transcom to lead the way and show you where you would benefit the most from switching to digital operations. Digital transformations help make organizations better equipped to innovate rapidly, drive efficiency through automation, and provide better insights for decision-making and further improvement.  

What are the benefits of digital operations?

Short answer? Improving basically anything it touches. 

Long answer? First and foremost, they increase efficiency by creating a better employee and agent experience. By having an interconnected digital operation with good management you can shorten the agent journey and allow them to focus on what matters instead of dealing with the system itself, manually digging through data, etc. 

This also entails a better response time, a faster turnaround, and fewer mistakes because nothing takes away the agent's attention. That, in turn, increases customer satisfaction, reduces wait times and queues, and takes stress away from the agent. 

Keep in mind that this is just the starting point for your digital operations. After implementation, they also allow for better handling of data, more transparency with feedback, and allow you to correlate agent anecdotal evidence with cold hard facts. This abundance of meaningful data creates a better understanding of your operations and business and gives you the opportunity to know which areas should be left as is and which require more attention and streamlining, opening you to further innovation and growth.

Transcom and digital operations.

Now that the definitions and explanations are out of the way, we can get to real-life examples of how Transcom does it. We have many established digital solutions and operations in place which have helped create the brilliance of many of our clients, but, as we like to say, we’re lifelong learners. This means that we’re never complacent and pride ourselves on innovation through our Tech Hub and T:Labs which allow our talented people to explore new and exciting solutions, tools, and tech in general. Let’s look at just some of them in detail.

Automation.

Automation is the key to unlocking your call center agent's potential and one of the most important aspects of digital operations. Automation helps streamline the process of handling calls, reducing time wasted on mundane tasks like managing systems or trying to find specific data and freeing up your agents’ valuable time so they can focus on what really matters - providing an excellent customer experience. 

With automation, you can set up rules that determine when certain functions should be carried out – such as routing calls to specific team members based on customer needs or placing customers in queues if no one is available immediately. Not only does this make life easier for your agents, but it also helps ensure a consistent level of service every single time. That means happy customers and happy agents – a win-win situation for everyone involved.

As far as numbers and hard data go, Transcom has automated over a million tasks for a telco client, in a year. This was done by automating 14 processes for the client. The results? A 36% deflection of inbound calls, lowering wait times and increasing CSAT, by taking the process out of the hands of the agent. An average time saving of 53 seconds per task resulting in a total of 13,524 hours of saved time which is the equivalent of seven agents. All that while boasting an almost 90% success rate.  

Automated Translation.

Automated Translation, Transcom AI-powered, real-time translation solution, can provide your call center agents the superpower of being able to communicate with customers in more than one language in both voice and text. How cool is that? Not only does this capability allow your team to reach out to a wider customer base, but it also means they can do it without your agents having to learn any new languages or having to hire new agents.

It’s fully integrated and allows companies to create their own glossary, making it adaptable and fully specific to whatever operation you apply it to. That means that you don’t have to sacrifice your unique customer experience for the sake of translation but rather enhance, improve, and expand your unique CX while adding fast, accurate, and reliable translation

This speed and efficiency combined with dynamic routing creates an amazing agent experience especially when fit into other digital operations. Through the use of Automated Translation the agents’ confidence in their work increases because they know there is no language barrier, thus raising their efficiency and satisfaction. Additionally, the agents didn’t have to go through any extra training and didn’t experience disruptions in their workflow due to the fact that the tool adds a single click to their workflow.

Too good to be true? Well, it isn’t. We’ve helped a brilliant online streaming client expand to new markets while cutting costs by 50% by implementing Automated Translation into their agents’ workflow. The tool sported near-perfect translation accuracy at 97%, with no decrease in customer satisfaction when compared to data before implementation. The agents working with the tool loved it, reporting 100% agent satisfaction. 

Analytics.

Data is as useful as the knowledge of how to use it. You could have the most expansive and detailed data set but not be able to do anything with it. Analytics can be so much more than just numbers and charts; they can be a powerful tool for improving your digital operations. By tracking the performance of calls, customer feedback, agent activity, and other useful metrics, you can help identify areas where agents need additional training or guidance.

Analytics also provides insights on how to improve overall customer experience. Knowing which types of customers are having difficulty with which processes helps you tailor your service to ensure higher satisfaction rates. With real-time data at their fingertips, your agents will have the information they need to succeed and exceed customer expectations every time.

We’re very familiar with analytics, having used them to help PayPal reach their dream net promoter score of 60+.

Omnichannel automation.

An omnichannel approach is essential for agents if you want them to handle customer inquiries quickly and effectively. It’s important to make sure that your agents are able to access all the resources they need at any time, no matter what platform or device a customer uses. By having this kind of multi-channel approach, it makes it easier for customers to get help and it raises their satisfaction with your service. 

It also enables your agents to provide a better level of service because they no longer have to dig through call logs, and interaction and ticket history, they have it all in one place and can easily even switch from channel to channel within a single query. Not to mention that handoff from agent to agent is seamless and doesn’t require the customer to repeat everything they said to the first agent that handled their query further creating a seamless experience for the customer and making the agent’s job a whole lot easier.

Our big European retail client experienced such benefits when we implemented omnichannel automation. This reduced average handling time by 23%, increased first call resolution by 9%, and increased productivity and employee satisfaction.

Integrated platforms

As with omnichannel, integrating platforms creates a centralized experience that benefits employees due to ease of use and employers due to increased productivity and performance. Not only that. Customers also feel the difference with our projects reporting increased customer satisfaction. 

Integrated platforms are important for call center agents because they allow them to have all the information they need in one place. With integrated platforms, agents can quickly and easily access customer data, view caller history, make notes, and even provide personalized support. This makes it easier for agents to be productive while delivering better service — something that's essential in today's competitive world. Plus, having an easy-to-use interface ensures that everyone from new hires to experienced veterans is able to master it as fast as possible without disruption to the workflow.

The way this works put into practice is best shown by how we helped our European garden center and equipment retail client transform their CX. In just one year our client went through a digital transformation and created an integrated platform by building a SaaS solution. This created a reduction of 33% in average handling time and almost twice faster backlog elimination. This lead to increased agent satisfaction and a better customer experience. Apart from that, in the first year, they saw an 18% reduction in the total cost of operations with a forecasted additional 35% decrease in the second year.