Blockchain and AI for Customer Care: A Multichannel Vision

I have always worked in touch with the client, in commercial areas. I have had the opportunity to work in different channels and I have always worked much closed to the rest of channels out of my responsibility.

From my personal experience, the most important thing I have learnt is that, of course, the most vital value for a company are its clients. This could sound like a topic, probably all of us would agree with that idea, but keeping this in mind at any touchpoint with any of our customers with any people in the whole company makes the difference between the leader and the rest of competitors.

Let`s talk about utility companies. They are a clear example of dealing with a lot of customers through many different channels, in sectors where there is a huge competition in mature markets. This is a clear situation where customer`s loyalty is a must for the company. What I have learnt is that, for sure, price is important for the client related to the value proposition he receives, but the response and the relationship a company is able to develop with that customer is the key.

The company has to deal with a lot of contacts with the clients in many different points; call centers, that can be located all around the world; retail, probably in all the cities the company operates in; canal on line; task forces; maintenance tasks if necessary, and so on…. I would like to highlight not just the tremendous value for a company the quality those contacts are deal with, but also the importance of the information provided and the possibility to have the global vision of all those contacts. Currently, It is very usual to storage that information departmentally and in a centralized way. Blockchain technology can offer a very good solution to this situation. My vision here is a distributed ledger for all the channels with all the contacts a company has with the clients.

I think that blockchain is the best technology to solve this problem due to the specific characteristics of the technology:

· It is a distributed database; each party on a blockchain has access to the entire database and its complete history. We are talking about the possibility of different points of touch for the same client.

· Peer-to-Peer transmission. There is no need for a central node, so all channels work in the same way in front of the client.

· Transparency for the client and Irreversibility of records, which are very important to deal with future claims, as they are a very common problem in this kind of industries.

· Computational logic. Therefore, the company can set up algorithms and rules to improve the relationship model with the customers. These characteristics support three ideas; improving the quality of the relationship model, offering new opportunities for upselling and improving the efficiency of the channels.

In this paper, I will try to explain the idea more deeply. I have only found benefits for the client… and for the company.

From a traditional design…

Problems of having a unique and end-to-end vision of each client are a common situation in companies managing a large number of customers through different attention and sales channels. From the customer side of view, this problem leads to a lack of consistency, personalization and high time response that do not fit with the customer quality expectations. From the company side of view, this problem implies inefficiency in the attention channels and in sales initiatives due to the misunderstanding of the client`s needs. A blockchain based solution to this problem improves dramatically the intensive margin of the Company – doing better what the Company is already doing, in a more effective and efficient way.

We have heard a lot about multi-channel capabilities; the company offers the customers different channels to communicate through and customers choose the one they want. The problem is these capabilities are real if the company has fully integrated information of the customers in all the channels. This does not always happen. A common situation is a channel operating with departmental CRMs, in a centralized way, disconnected between them. If a client calls up the call center and later goes to a store, workers in the store probably will not know the problem this client managed with the call center before. On the other hand, if that client were using intensively the canal on line, probably it would not be necessary to include him in an outbound telemarketing commercial campaign.

Apart from integrated information, motivated agents are crucial to develop a prosperous relationship model with customers. Building customer loyalty is a crucial issue as it was said above, but building employee loyalty has the same or more importance. We do not always have motivated people in front of our customers and this is a dramatic situation that becomes worse if the company works with external providers in its channels.

…to a Blockchain solution

To solve this problem, the proposed initiative is a blockchain solution for the overall company where all the channels share and update the information about all interactions they have with customers. This solution gives a huge competitive advantage to the company. Customers receive the same information in a consistent way from any agent in any channel because all of them have the same updated information of that customer´s information in that very moment.

As the company has all the information about the contacts with the clients, the company has the possibility to work with that information in different perspectives:

• Consistency:

As any Blockchain solution, the information accuracy is the base to build on. The fundamental actor to get this is the agent that manages the contact with the client (Interactions through online channel are recorded automatically). The Company defines the information to storage: Client ID, type of contact, channel, description of the interaction….

• Effectiveness:

To improve the effectiveness of commercial campaigns. As the company has a better knowledge of each customers, it knows the best moment to launch commercial impacts with the most adjusted proposition to each customer. The solution has incorporated Artificial Intelligence capabilities to choose automatically the best action in each moment for every client.

• Efficiency:

To adjust the capacity of the channels more precisely to the real demand of the customers. It is going to be easier and more accurate to forecast the demand curve if the company has a global map of contacts of its clients.

The solution will automatize some actions for the customers depending on their behavior. This blockchain solution uses smart contracts to automatically manage the commercial and customer care actions the company has designed for the “customer journey”.

• Transparency:

One of the most disruptive characteristics of this solution is the transparency the company can offer to the customers. Clients have access to the information of every interactions they had with the company. Up to now, the company was the owner of that information. Now that information is shared, and it is unalterable. This is going to give the company an incomparable trusted attribute, crucial to ensure customer loyalty. They are going to have what they have been often asking for: some sense of control over their data.

• Rewarding system:

This solution also provides the company a disruptive loyalty program, both for customers and agents. Having motivated workers is fundamental to give the customers the best experience and the loyalty of the customers is the base of a business. The solution uses a token to incentive agents both to offer the best quality to the client (the client has the possibility to evaluate the quality of the agent in each interaction and that valuation is recorded in the contact) and to record the information of that contact in a very accurate way. From the side of the customer, the company gives them Tokens for two different reasons, firstly to reward their loyalty and secondly to get their consent to use their data.

Customers and agents can exchange tokens for different benefits. Customers can get access to exclusive promotional actions or special discounts in some products or services. Agents can change Tokens for social or economic incentives. This token is a utility token that cannot be traded in the cryptocurrency market.

Other considerations

This Blockchain solution is a very disruptive one. This is the kind of solutions where technology improves dramatically our way of doing things. This is a new digital platform that does not use tokens as funding mechanism, but as a way to align incentives of employees and customers, the most important value for the company.

The main challenge companies have to face nowadays is their digital transformation, that is, taking advantage of how new technologies can improve or change traditional business. This solution is a catalyst of that process. The company needs an integral strategy to take full advantage of this new technology innovation.

This solution provides more data to the company than ever before. The company gets information on line of all that is happening off line. Now the challenge is to manage that information in order to get benefits for the company. Blockchain is the technology that allows having and sharing that information. Artificial Intelligence is the solution to manage it automatically. By combining both technologies all across the company, digital transformation really gives net benefit for the company.

I have no doubt this is the way companies will work in a near future. Moreover, this is a good example of seeing the opportunity much higher thanks to this amazing digital revolution we are living.