Coop case study
The Client
The Coop Group is a collection of businesses, including retail, funeral and energy sectors. It’s owned by individual members and other co-ops, rather than big investors.
It has roots back to 1863 when the first iteration of the business was set up. The Co-op supports its local community and Co-op members have a say in how it’s run.
The Challenge
Co-op reached out to Premier CX, as a trusted partner, to assist the business with cost saving measures that wouldn’t negatively impact on their excellent customer service levels.
They had a 94% satisfaction rating for their membership line.
Our Task
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Optimise the Co-op IVR with adjustments that positively steer customers towards digital solutions
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Re-scripting of the IVR and messaging, with a focus on the introduction of SMS text messaging with links to self-service options
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Maintain current service satisfaction levels
"Our IVR self-service rate has risen from 20% to 28% of demand and 15% of callers are now requesting the SMS link which takes them straight to the relevant web page."
The Solution
Working with Coop, we redesigned and rescripted their membership and care IVR journeys focussing on supporting the caller to utilise their digital solutions.
Working with their IT department, we gave callers the option to receive a link to their mobile phone from the call. We made this the first option so that callers who pressed 1 would receive the link and the call would terminate.
We also introduced the option to add your mobile number if you were calling from a landline, so everyone got the option to utilise this solution. This approach has proven, over time, to be extremely effective.
The Results
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Award-winning IVR (MARCE - Marketing and Creative Excellence)
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IVR self-service rate has risen from 20% to 28%
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15% of callers are requesting the SMS link which takes them straight to the relevant web page
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25% fewer calls hitting the queue, translating into significant savings
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The service satisfaction scores remained unchanged at 94%
“With Premier’s support we achieved our objective of positively encouraging more members to self-serve. Our IVR self-service rate has risen from 20% to 28% of demand and 15% of callers are now requesting the SMS link which takes them straight to the relevant web page. This has resulted in around 25% fewer calls hitting the queue which translates into significant savings for Co-op. The great part is that it hasn’t had a negative impact on the service satisfaction scores, which have remained unchanged at 94%. The Premier team were great to work with, providing a level of industry insight and expertise that enabled us to confidently and quickly move forward with these changes.”
Adrian Morley - Operational Change & Integration Manager, Sales and Service, Co-op Business Services
