Implementing the right CX solution in today’s complex landscape is essential to ensuring ongoing success. Today’s customers make decisions on who to work with based on the customer experience they can provide. In the financial services landscape especially, clients need to know they can trust a company to offer simple, effective, and reliable service.
Canon Financial Services, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Canon USA brand, offers lease financing on high-quality Canon products. The mission of the company is to assist all kinds of businesses in accessing the exceptional technology they need through access to convenient financing options. According to Canon Financial Services, amazing customer service is the key to success for their brand.
To continue delivering a memorable experience for modern customers, Canon felt it was important to leverage new technology for clients, including self-service solutions. To achieve this goal, the brand partnered with Avaya, building a powerful tool for IT troubleshooting, self-service and empowered managers.
Implementing New Solutions for Self Service
Every day, the CFS (Canon Financial Services) group handles hundreds of inquiries and calls from dealers and customers related to the leasing of various high-end cameras, copiers, and printers, as well as leading medical equipment. This group stands as a crucial part of the customer-facing community for the Canon brand, responsible for helping to define the business.
According to Senior Director of IT for Canon, Don Bryson, the agents dealing with customer questions and partners on a daily basis deal more directly with customers than any other group. Empowering these professionals to provide an optimized experience is crucial to the organisation’s success. This is why Bryson and his team constantly pursue better experiences for agents and customers alike.
For over a decade, CFS relied on the Avaya team to keep its contact centre on track and compete with the latest tools on the market. The upgrade to the Avaya IX Contact Centre implemented in the wake of the Avaya Experience Portal was particularly crucial for the company. The inclusion of a new interactive voice response system and workforce optimisation tools helped to elevate agent efficiency and customer satisfaction almost immediately.
When this new upgrade appeared, the Canon Financial Services group decided to leverage a new self-service option for customers, so agents had more time to focus on high-value and complex enquiries. To achieve this goal, the team worked with the Avaya Professional Services team to tie crucial data into a new self-service solution and configure an easy-to-navigate interface for customers.
Upgrading Customer Experience for the Digital Age
As the world became increasingly digitized, Canon noticed just how valuable self-service solutions could be. Not only would these offerings provide customers with more of the experiences they were looking for, but it would save agents hundreds of essential manhours too.
Implementing a combination of Avaya IX contact centre technology, Avaya IX Workforce engagement, and Nuance automatic speech recognition tools allowed Canon Financial Services to significantly improve their day-to-day operations. Day or night, customers could now take care of all kinds of needs, from balance inquiries to insights into the time remaining on their lease, and more. CFS even allowed users to make payments without speaking to an agent.
According to Leori Kea, the Senior Manager of IT Support, Avaya helped the CFS team to make the most of their existing technology while creating new solutions. Customers could suddenly make payments and access help however they liked.
The Nuance speech-enabled Avaya Experience Portal significantly reduced the pressure on agents after implementation too. CFS said year-over-year, the contact centre saw doubling in its “golden metric”, or the percentage of fully self-serviced inquiries managed by the team.