Drawing on experience of working with leading brands AirAsia, Dixons, Ageas, The White Company, and L’Occitane en Provence, Eptica will share its expertise on how to create a business case for investing in technology to deliver more efficiency, better customer experience and drive revenue from service. This workshop will include practical advice drawing on case studies and real life examples and will encourage participants to share challenges and best practice.

1. Paul Barnes, VP Operations
WORKSHOP
MAKING THE CASE FOR
CONTACT CENTRE
INVESTMENT
Eptica. Transforming customer engagement for a multichannel world

2. Introduction
Paul Barnes, VP Operations, Eptica

3. Overview for the Workshop
Objectives
• Identify the key steps in building a business case
• Provide some tools, tips and techniques
• Improve your chances of success (both approval &
delivery)

4. Structure
• Know your audience
• Benefits case
 Cost saving
 Revenue increase
 Qualitative benefits
• Exercise
• Cost modelling
• Project considerations
• Stakeholder Inclusion

5. Know Your Audience

6. Know Your Audience

7. Know Your Audience
Great Customer Experience leads to better business
performance
It seems intuitive but we have to articulate why and

8. Know Your Audience
What matters most to the Board is Value i.e. share price
Five-Year Stock Performance Of Customer Experience Index
(CXi) Leaders Versus Laggards Versus S&P 500 (2007 to 2011)

9. Know Your Audience
And you have to speak their language...
• EBITDA (Earning Before Interest Tax Depreciation &
Amortisation)
• NPV (Net Present Value)
• Cost of capital
• CapEx vs. OpEx
• Etc...

10. Business Case
Some general considerations
• Build up the assumptions from a zero base
 then validate with reference to other companies & analysts
• Under commit on the numbers
• Build a flexible model with assumptions
• Look at sensitivity analysis

11. Business Case: Cost Reduction
Reduction in volume
• Self-service
• Proactive contact
• Process change
• Better first contact resolution
• Reduced duplicates / chase ups
Increase in productivity
• AHT reduction
• Channel shift
• Reduced down time
• Reduced training time
Model Current
Costs
• Use normal MI
• Link to total OpEx
Define assumed
changes
• Primary research
• References, analysts
• Benchmark tests
Model impact
and analyse
• Split benefit by type
• Show graphically

12. Business Case: Revenue Increase
Harder to evaluate, but higher impact. Look for a well
defined, stable area in which to prove benefit
Sales conversion
• Self-service at problem points
• Proactive web chat in sales process (A/B testing)
Inbound Marketing
• Upsell at point of sale
• Next best action at point of response

13. Qualitative Benefits
Don’t try to quantify the unquantifiable!
• It should provide extra reassurance
• Often best told through use cases
Researching
whilst in store on
a mobile device
Buying online later
and using self-
service help
Escalating to chat
to finish the
purchase
Asking a question
by email on the
way home
And sharing their views about their
experience on Facebook...

14. Over to you...

15. Cost Modelling
Step 1: Talk to the Finance Department
Use their templates, understand the rules
How do they evaluate cost?

16. Cost Modelling: Checklist
• Training – people & facilities
• Administration of new systems
• Feedback surveys – Voice of customer / employee
Staff Costs
• IT infrastructure
• DR planning
• Reporting & planning
• Integration with existing systems
Internal Costs
• Back up, test, resiliency
• Professional Services contingency
• Optimisation & post go live tweaks
• Scale up costs
Vendor costs

17. Cost Modelling: Gotchas
Risks to the cost model
IT Security mandate a new technical
approach
Network issue resolution with SaaS
systems
Website & ecommerce costs / delays for
changes
Marketing costs for look and feel or
brand voice
SaaS costs unpredictable

18. Project Considerations
Be a Phaser...

19. Project Considerations
Be a Phaser...
• It is important to paint the long term strategic vision
• And equally important to show tactical steps towards it
• Risk is contained and strategic options remain open
• Ask for investment for the first phase only at this stage
• Phase based on business case – deliver early on a high
return and low risk
• Build confidence for the bigger phases later
• Gives you a chance to evaluate & reconsider phases

20. Stakeholder Inclusion
Vital for two key reasons
Validation
• Test your thinking and
your business case
• Practice and sharpen
your presentation
• Highlight gaps in the
benefits and costs
Alignment
• Identify wider benefits for
other business functions
• Identify potential conflicts
with other initiatives
• Coordinate strategy
• Shared risk/reward with
the vendor

21. Summary
• Link to Board issues – share
price especially
• Work bottom up and top
down on benefits case
• A flexible model is your best
tool
• Sell the vision but be a
phaser
• Invest in stakeholder
alliances
• What could possibly go
wrong?

22. www.eptica.com
facebook.com/EpticaUK
twitter.com/EpticaUK
eptica.wordpress.com
The No1 customer engagement platform for multichannel customer service
Thank you. If you have any questions,
please contact:
Eptica. Transforming customer engagement for a multichannel world
paul.barnes@eptica.com