The disparate data challenge
TTEC agents have a complex job. With over one hundred engagement centers around the world, TTEC interacts with over 3.5 million customers every day on behalf of dozens of brands. Whether assisting retail customers with refunding a purchase, providing technical support to online banking customers, or closing a B2B software sale, agents always strive to provide a seamless and consistent customer experience.
But a challenge with providing outsourced support for a host of different companies is using a host of different tools. One company might use Salesforce or SAP to store customer information, while another uses Microsoft Dynamics. As a result, TTEC’s customer data was stored across a variety of platforms, apps, and social media sites, creating gaps in efficiency and agent expertise. Without a way to unify these disparate connections, agents lacked the complete picture, hurting their ability to effectively problem-solve, cross-sell, and retain customers.
Bringing it all together
TTEC turned to Neal Analytics to help unify their siloed ecosystem. A Microsoft partner since 2011, Neal Analytics is a cloud, data, and AI consulting firm that support companies throughout their business transformation journey. With Fortune 500 clientele ranging from retail corporations to manufacturers to technology enterprises, their singular focus is helping these companies use data to drive new business value by supporting them end-to-end, from business analysis to implementation.
Neal Analytics and TTEC partnered to build the Humanify Insights Platform, a cloud-based data platform that aggregates customer data into a common architecture. The platform uses Azure Data Factory to collect data from TTEC’s multiple connection points and move it to Azure Data Lake, where it’s processed and schematized using the Microsoft Common Data Model. The data then undergoes a “cleansing” process where it’s scrubbed of redundant, outdated, or inconsistent material—e.g., duplicate addresses, misspelled names, or expired payment information. After cleansing, the platform applies machine learning algorithms to create reports based on those Common Data Model schemas. The data is unified into a known form, where structural consistency is applied, so it can be used and understood across multiple apps and business processes.
The analytical reporting is visualized in a Power BI dashboard, allowing agents to view customer data in a real-time, responsive way and quickly access the most current, accurate, and relevant data for the case. Neal Analytics also customized a series of pre-existing Microsoft AI models to make product recommendations based on previous purchases and search history. Together, these components give TTEC a unified data ecosystem and 360-degree view of the customer.
More sales, less churn
Not only does the Humanify Insights Platform give TTEC a faster path to insightful and seamless customer interactions, it allows agents to go beyond the traditional customer service use-case. Armed with schematized customer data, agents are now able to make product recommendations based on purchasing history and behavior—resulting in a five to ten percent increase in sales.
The platform also specializes in churn identification and intervention. Algorithms are trained to identify the customers most likely to churn allowing agents to proactively intervene with retention strategies. As a result, TTEC has reduced customer churn by 20 percent. Combining TTEC’s agent expertise with advanced automation, machine learning, and AI from the Microsoft common data model, TTEC is using cutting-edge data and AI to create meaningful customer experiences and drive business value in new ways.
The road ahead
TTEC is offering the Humanify Insights Platform on the Microsoft App Store. Companies can use the app to easily aggregate their own customer data into a common architecture.