Nectar reinforces customer service centre
The operator of the Nectar coalition loyalty programme, Loyalty Management UK (LMUK), has implemented customer service solutions from RightNow Technologies, resulting in increased satisfaction for the programme's 13 million members, and reduced overheads.
After installing the customer service solution, LMUK's contact centre experienced an immediate reduction in e-mail queries received from cardholders. Moreover, the company has reduced its overheads by introducing RightNow within its contact management environment. Nectar's members also benefit from the technology by being able to access relevant information about the programme more quickly. According to RightNow, the entire solution was set up and running in less than ten days from start to finish.
"Before installing RightNow, we faced significant customer service challenges. The success of the Nectar programme was resulting in huge volumes of inbound queries across all customer service channels," explained one representative from LMUK's contact centre. "Implementing RightNow enabled us to manage this growth far more efficiently than before. Consequently, we have been able to move from a reactive to a predominantly proactive approach to customer service."
Weighted knowledge RightNow's eService Centre system contains a proprietary knowledge engine which analyses and sorts information so that the most popular and useful answers come to the top of the list of knowledge items. This enables customers to find answers to routine questions almost immediately, minimising their need to telephone or e-mail the customer service team.
The practical test Putting this to the test, The Wise Marketer's technical editor, Peter Clark, immediately grabbed his Nectar card and used Nectar's web site to try to find the answer to the question: "I have moved home - how can I change my address?". The appropriate answer was right there in one mouse click - second on the list of five possible answers. The question "How can I replace my lost Nectar card?" yield no less than four helpful responses at the top of the results list (including information about replacing a damaged card, what to do if you lose a card, what happens if a card is stolen, and details of how long a replacement card will take to arrive). The query "How many points for a Sainsbury's voucher?" yielded a very detailed answer at position 4 in the results list. It is indeed easy to see why customer queries are now less frequent.
CRM behind it all Linked to LMUK's Siebel CRM system, the RightNow solution allows other queries to be routed to the most appropriate contact centre agents. These agents can then give consistent, accurate answers across all channels because they are provided with easy access to the most relevant information through the system.
According to an LMUK spokesperson, "Another benefit of the solution was its ease of implementation. Because RightNow was able to host the solution itself, only two days were required for configuration, and two more for testing. As a result, we were able to 'go live' less than ten working days after starting the installation process." Other notable organisations already making use of RightNow's solutions include Air New Zealand, Ben & Jerry's, Briggs and Stratton, British Airways, Cisco, Dolby Laboratories Inc., Pioneer, Raymarine, Remington, and Sanyo, the US Social Security Administration, and the State of Florida.
According to LMUK's latest figures, more than 50% of UK households have now signed up for the Nectar programme, which now has more than 13 million accounts across the country, and a total of 11 sponsors: Adams, all:sports, Barclaycard, BP, Debenhams, e-Energy, Ford, Sainsbury's, Thresher Group, Vodafone and Winemark.
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