Sharekhan Keeps Customers Updated With Aspect Platform

Each of us has our own means of survival and coping mechanisms. For some, the share market is the end-all of everything and a hiccup in this volatile market creates a ripple effect in their lives. In a scenario such as this, where life is governed by market progressions, retail-brokerage firms have to be on their toes all the time, and provide their customers with information at the snap of a finger. In its pursuit to excel at customer service, Sharekhan selected Aspect EnsemblePro, which gave it the flexibility to meet customer service needs for inbound call handling, voice self-service, predictive outbound dialling, call blending, call monitoring and recording, and creating outbound marketing campaigns, among other capabilities.

Sharekhan provides trade execution services through multiple channels – Internet, phone and retail outlets and is present in 225 cities through a network of 615 presence points.

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The Need to Secure Customer Information

Ketan Parekh, Chief Technology Officer, Sharekhan, says, “As a financial services company, we wanted to offer user-friendly services to our customers to manage their stock portfolios, including online capabilities linked to an information database to help customers confidently invest, and inbound customer services using voice self-service technology, and have customer service agents handling telephone orders from clients. However, it was becoming increasingly difficult for us to access customer portfolio information in a secure contact centre environment. We also found ourselves struggling to integrate the back-end applications and streamline customer data to contact centre agents.”

Additionally, managing upgrades and technology issues to accommodate a growing customer base was a huge challenge in itself. That is when Sharekhan decided to move on to a platform that would help the company to address all these challenges.

Unifying Capabilities: The Key

Parekh says, “We did not have to make any major IT alteration to house this solution, it integrated seamlessly with our existing infrastructure. The solution made efficient use of the existing set-up like the use of active directory domain controller (ADC) for user/ agent/ supervisor authentication and security enhancements.”

Following are the capabilities that made Aspect EnsemblePro an apt solution for Sharekhan:

• Unified Administration – managed inbound, outbound, e-mail, workflow and Web interactions from one provisioning and administration interface.
• Unified Routing – applies unified routing strategies across the contact centre. This allows for a consistent customer experience for all interaction channels.
• Unified Reporting – eliminates the need to integrate reporting data from multiple point solution data sources, and delivers a comprehensive view of the performance of the contact centre.
• Automatic Call Distribution – answers calls and intelligently routes them to available agents based on the customer profile, service level goals and agent profile.
• Predictive Dialling – leverages the capabilities needed to make your outbound collections, sales or telemarketing strategies.

Phased Implementation

The implementation process was bifurcated into two phases, which helped users to get accustomed to the new environment without impacting Sharekhan’s usual business output. The first phase included deployment of the technology running parallel to the existing infrastructure with all the features and functionalities except for back-office integration. The second leg of the deployment was quite significant for the firm as it involved complete migration to the new platform along with transferring of critical data.

Sharekhan conducted a complete UAT ((User Acceptance Test) followed by a thorough SAT (System Acceptance Test) for a span of seven working days beyond which the legacy system was discontinued and the Aspect platform was in full production.

“Like in the case of most IT deployments, we faced a few impediments in terms of telecom fine-tuning and agents getting user-agnostic to inbound/ outbound applications and screen pop-ups. However, these glitches were ironed out gradually,’ explains Parekh.

Benefits

Effectively managing client expectations and offering them a high quality of customer service was key for Sharekhan. Aspect’s offering helped smoothen the technology integration issues and got the company back on its growth track with minimal complications. Some prominent benefits are:

• Reduced initial and ongoing integration costs
• Reduced annual maintenance costs
• Increased volume of interactions handled by staff
• Increased customer retention

With the market picking up, Sharekhan would definitely need this solution to deal with an upsurge in customer demands.