Leaders Talk: Do the Strong Execution for Make Things Happen

December 17, 2021 – Contact Center Associations of Asia Pacific (CC-APAC) in collaboration with Verint, presented Leaders Talk discussion with the theme “Digitalization in Financial Services.” In this leader’s talk, CC-APAC invited professional speakers of the contact center in the Asia Pacific. 

One of the speakers is Apirom Sutthinats, Contact Center Manager (Sales and Renewal Division), Roojai, Thailand. Apirom explained the challenge of digitalization and also the opportunity for financial services institutions. She said the challenge is they are really difficult to encourage and educate people. They are too difficult to tell everyone that online services were the best way to serve people for this time. This online makes flexible, and people can manage what they want anytime. 

She also shared that when the pandemic comes, she sees that the people’s behavior is changing. People are mostly more on their mobile phones and that is a mobile phone becomes the more essential into their life. Then, she advantages that situation now. They take the opportunity, such as improve a lot of customer experience, customer engagement, customer relationship, and also customer satisfaction. 

She also explains that people are not easy to adapt or accept this fast change, especially in this time everything is self-care online. “What do we need to do to handle these challenges, when we do change anything online?” ask her. Before we share with our customers, we need to prepare the training and ensure our staff clearly understand the rationale behind that change, such as what is the benefit to them? And also the benefit to the customer.

Same as another speaker, Apirom also gives tips to leaders to develop digital financial services. She said that leaders in the contact center are playing a really important law in business contribution, especially when it’s related to the customer. 

Therefore, leaders must be able to deal with any situation, such as paying attention to the customer, making what we doing currently better, and serve to the customer better. 

And also, as a leader, we always need to find a way to make our people work smart, minimize unnecessary work, and use technology or innovation to improve our contact center operations to work more efficiently. The last thing is execution. Not only plan and talk, but how strong our execution and action to make things happen. Therefore, she believes that everyone can make that change. (ANF) 

Leaders Talk: How to Build Momentum for the Leadership in Contact Center

December 17, 2021 – Interactive discussion initiated by Contact Center Associations of Asia Pacific (CC-APAC) in collaboration with Verint, with the theme, “Digitalization in Financial Services.” This event is invited four professional speakers from the Asia Pacific contact center. 

One of the speakers who was invited to this discussion is Novie Marlika. She is Vice President Customer Experience, OVO, Indonesia. In this discussion, Novie Malika said that OVO are contribute the solutions to this challenge, especially financial literacy and inclusion. Why financial services? Because she thinks, financial literacy is an important thing in the country for the economic process. “The challenge is always to find the right products and services that are easy to use, secure, and affordable,” said Novie. 

Novie also said that is why OVO particularly adopts the open ecosystem approach, such as being open to collaborating with other stakeholders. By doing this, Novie thinks OVO can expand from digital payment, also can over-like investment insurance bonds to meet the growing needs of the community with ease. 

Not only that, Novie explains that is basically on the challenges, but the way OVO sees the digital payment as a gateway to the larger digital financial ecosystem, whereby it is an opportunity for financial institutions. Then, “During these four years, I think, OVO has received a positive acceptance amongst Indonesian people and to the general public itself,” said Novie. She also thinks OVO is committed to continuing to bring financial literacy and inclusion through accelerating digital transformation in Asia.

Novie also shared tips for leadership development. She said that the main word for the leadership in the contact center is building momentum. Before building momentum, there are things that we need to do. First, we need to keep up with our customer’s needs. “What do we say by keeping up with this customer’s needs?” said Novie. We have to ask them to join our journey. Because it’s digital, we have to understand them, and we should make it easier for our users to understand. 

In the long term, she thinks when we keep up with the customer needs is not about how we reach the specific finish, but we need to create a higher purpose. And we also need to consistently adapt to the changing environments. 

When the pandemic comes, we need to send more people to work from home. Then, they can stay safe, but on the other side, we need to make sure our operations will be able to monitor and run smoothly. 

The last from this, we need to gain CSAT. Then, it’s not only learning the satisfaction level, but we need to learn the dissatisfaction level. Furthermore, we need to look from a bigger lens, such as from social media. We can see the satisfaction level that we want to achieve from all those activities, such as in terms of efficiency, in terms of operational excellence, and also can see are they achieved all the performance or yet. 

The second thing we need before building momentum is to set up our team for success. She said that whenever we will start something new, we need to give our teams a higher purpose, such as why we need to go there. 

Therefore, she said that we should help agents with the suggested actions, and they need to do some escalation. She explains that we also need to optimize our contact center with data analytics. Then, of course, “Improve ourselves and it makes sure that we’ll be able to help all the operations,” said Novie. As a leader, we have to stand by and make sure that we provide the solutions, even though we do not have the answers to that agent’s problem. As a leader, we don’t have all the solutions in the world for all the cases. But we can help all the team to drive a solution for us. (ANF) 

Leaders Talk: Have a Competences Before Starting the Digitalization

December 17, 2021 – Contact Center Associations of Asia Pacific (CC-APAC) present Leaders Talk discussion with the theme “Digitalization of Financial Services.” CC-APAC invited four professional speakers to the Asia Pacific contact center.

One of the speakers is Ridwan Nugraha, SVP, Customer Experience Center Head, PT Bank BTPN, Tbk, Indonesia. Ridwan explains what the challenges and opportunities during this pandemic situation are. He said that the challenge is how we can both create our unique value proposition. For example, the product is easier, smarter, safer, like finance for their daily activities via smartphones. 

The opportunities of this are very huge. He talks about the megatrends, for example, such as the smartphone penetration, internet penetration, and Indonesian population for the Asia Pacific is more than 270 million, and also this is dominated by the millennials. 

“So, I think it’s it’s quite promising that Indonesia is still an emerging country with very high potential for digitalization, as well as digital finance,” said Ridwan. He calls it of opportunity as well as, “Peluang sekaligus panggilan.”

At the end of the discussion, Ridwan shared some tips before starting the digitalization of financial services. He said that we should have competence. Competence means that we have strong knowledge, skill, and experience. We can earn it and also enrich it by navigating carefully. 

Furthermore, don’t forget to keep upgrading ourselves to stay relevant because he thinks that we can do it in various ways. The next is we can do self-learning or collective learning, such as joining the ICCA or the CC-APAC Awards. Then, the key is to keep on learning, be courageous, and be confident in all we do. 

And also, Ridwan said that contact center leaders work with others, they are not working alone. We should learn to lead by example. Then, we need to show good examples to our people, such as attitude, openness, and full accountability. “Don’t forget to keep fun at work, because the happy customers come from employees,” said Ridwan. (ANF)

Leaders Talk: 4 Things That Should We Do in This Transition Period

December 17, 2021 – In this Leaders Talk, the Contact Center Associations of Asia Pacific (CC-APAC) in collaboration with Verint discussed the “Digitalization of Financial Services.” We invited four speakers who are professionals in the Asia Pacific contact center industry. 

One of the speakers is Reni Septiana, Senior Vice President Center of Digital, Halo BCA, PT Bank Central Asia, Tbk, Indonesia. The discussion started by talking about the challenges and opportunities of digitalization for its company. Reni said that there are two challenges they are facing. First, namely internal challenges. This is related to the coefficient of user-friendly, secure, and safe digital services. The second is an external challenge, like dealing with customer acceptance who depends on all of the digital services we offer. 

Reni also said that there are still new opportunities that they can optimize, even BCA is during those hard challenges. “The digital banking strategy has enabled us to get the business opportunities in the middle of a fast-moving customer transition into digital banking transactions,” said Reni. 

BCA keeps developing and making innovations, especially digital best initiatives for banking transaction services, such as mobile banking. Furthermore, this digital banking transaction plan avoids physical contact in the transaction conducted through mobile banking, such as online account opening. 

Also, Reni shared her tips for starting the digitalization of financial services. The first tips are resourceful and innovative. What is the meaning? It means that we should digitalize all business activity, such as services, business processes, and customer relations. And also, we can automate and make it efficient through bottom-up innovations, such as local programming and big data. The second is implementing agile working because BCA has a motto. “We have our motto is from good to great and great to agile,” said Reni. 

And the third is to believe that stability and change is powerful polarity. Stability means ensuring that the current business model is solid, efficient, effective, and stable. Then, the change means implementing those changes, which is necessary to be more competitive in the future. Next, we can play roles as a leader, such as becoming role models, collaborating, personnel appreciation, agility, responsiveness, and looking forward to meaningful goals. And also, don’t forget empathy and persuasiveness. “Always humble and serve others,” said Reni. And the last one is reliable on growing people and extra miles. (ANF)

Leaders Talk CC-APAC: New Challenges of Digitalization in Financial Services

Friday, December 17, 2021 – The seventh Leaders Talk hosted by CC-APAC in collaboration with Verint discussed “Digitalization in Financial Services,” by inviting four professional speakers to the Asia Pacific contact center.

This discussion was presented by Andi Anugrah, Chairman of ICCA Indonesia. The first panelist is Reni Septiana, Senior Vice President Center of Digital, Halo BCA, PT Bank Central Asia, Tbk, Indonesia. The second panelist is Ridwan Nugraha, SVP, Customer Experience Center Head, PT Bank BTPN, Tbk, Indonesia. The third is Novie Marlika, Vice President Customer Experience, OVO, Indonesia. And the last one is Apirom Sutthinats, Contact Center Manager (Sales and Renewal Division), Roojai, Thailand.

The discussion is started by talking about the challenges and opportunities of digitalization in financial services. First, Novie Malika said that OVO are contribute the solutions to this challenge, especially financial literacy and inclusion. Why financial services? Because she thinks, financial literacy is an important thing in the country for the economic process. “The challenge is always to find the right products and services that are easy to use, secure, and affordable,” said Novie. 

Novie also said that is why OVO particularly adopts the open ecosystem approach, such as being open to collaborating with other stakeholders. By doing this, Novie thinks OVO can expand from digital payment, also can over-like investment insurance bonds to meet the growing needs of the community with ease. 

Not only that, Novie explains that is basically on the challenges but the way OVO sees the digital payment as a gateway to the larger digital financial ecosystem, whereby it is an opportunity for financial institutions. Then, “During these four years, I think, OVO has received a positive acceptance amongst Indonesian people and to the general public itself,” said Novie. She also thinks OVO is committed to continuing to bring financial literacy and inclusion through accelerating digital transformation in Asia.

There is another challenge that Apirom Sutthinats shared. She said the challenge is they are really difficult to encourage and educate people. They are too difficult to tell everyone that online services were the best way to serve people for this time. This online makes flexible, and people can manage what they want anytime. 

She also shared that when the pandemic comes, she sees that the people’s behavior is changing. People are mostly more on their mobile phones and that is a mobile phone becomes the more essential into their life. Then, she advantages that situation now. They take the opportunity, such as improve a lot of customer experience, customer engagement, customer relationship, and also customer satisfaction. 

She also explains that people are not easy to adapt or accept this fast change, especially in this time everything is self-care online. “What do we need to do to handle these challenges, when we do change anything online?” ask her. Before we share with our customers, we need to prepare the training and ensure our staff clearly understand the rationale behind that change, such as what is the benefit to them? And also the benefit to the customer.

Ridwan Nugraha explains what the challenges and opportunities during this pandemic situation are. He said that the challenge is how we can both create our unique value proposition. For example, the product is easier, smarter, safer, like finance for their daily activities via smartphones. 

The opportunities of this are very huge. He talks about the megatrends, for example, such as the smartphone penetration, internet penetration, and Indonesian population for the Asia Pacific is more than 270 million, and also this is dominated by the millennials. 

“So, I think it’s it’s quite promising that Indonesia is still an emerging country with very high potential for digitalization, as well as digital finance,” said Ridwan. He calls it of opportunity as well as, “Peluang sekaligus panggilan.”

The last, opinion from Reni Septiana. Reni said that there are two challenges they are facing. First, namely internal challenges. This is related to the coefficient of user-friendly, secure, and safe digital services. The second is an external challenge, like dealing with customer acceptance who depends on all of the digital services we offer.

Reni also said that there are still new opportunities that they can optimize, even BCA is during those hard challenges. “The Digital Banking strategy has enabled us to get the business opportunities in the middle of a fast-moving customer transition into digital banking transactions,” said Reni.

BCA keeps developing and making innovations, especially digital best initiatives for banking transaction services, such as mobile banking. Furthermore, this digital banking transaction plan avoids physical contact in the transaction conducted through mobile banking, such as online account opening.

At the end of the discussion, all panelists give their closing remarks and tips about the development of digital finance in Indonesia. Are you curious about want kind of tips that they are shared? Then, stay tuned for another article on the CC-APAC website. (ANF)

Re-imagined Customer Experience by Doing Proactive Outreach to Your Customers

November 26, 2021 – As we know, before announcing the winner on CC-APAC Awards Ceremony 2021, CC-APAC held the CC-APAC Conference 2021 with the theme CC-APAC invite invited two speakers who are professionals in the Asia Pacific contact center industry. 

The second speaker is Endang Rachmawati. She is Webex Customer Experience Specialist, Cisco. Endang said now in the pandemic situation, everybody has to work and interact from home and also do everything online. Therefore, the organization has to make sure that they consider their business process for being engaging with their customer. When customers go into their contact centers, they should make sure that the agent will be able to answer the query fast and accurately. 

Endang shared that customer experience is largely broken. What is the problem that makes it broken? She said that because there’s no proactiveness from the organization. If the company will inform them of any critical issue, such as some suspicious activity on their credit card the customer would appreciate it. Then, the customer doesn’t have to make a call, they would know and understand what happened. 

And another thing that makes the customer experience broken is when the customer wants to communicate with the organization, they should be forced to ask by a call. There’s no other channel that the customer will be able to use because when they call the contact centers, it will take some time before they get the solution. 

Endang said that we understand those problems the majority because the organization only focuses on the contact center view, such as on the purchase and the service. In the real fact, she said that customer journey happens before it gets into the contact centers or even after. Then, with our solutions, we will give you a view of an end-to-end customer journey. 

She explains that we understand that improving the customer experience isn’t gonna be easy but it’s quite complex. Because every organization has a different division, they have different sets of solutions and applications. And also, they have different ways of communicating with their customers. 

Customer Care will talk differently to their customer, sales and marketing will have their tools to talk to the customer, then it’s quite complex in making sure that it is going to be one streamlined communication with the same customer. Therefore, this mess is something that we are trying to solve.

The good news is Endang said she have delivered the future of customer experience with the all-new Webex contact center, which is now available in ASEAN. With Webex contact centers, we are re-imagining customer experience in which we are doing proactive outreach with our customers. 

Endang explains that we would be able to notify them, such as doctor appointments, any suspicious on a customer credit card, any orders delays, any pickup notification, and any online ordering status. Make sure that we are notifying you of anything urgent. Then, these will proactively reach out to your customer.

That would certainly go to reduce the number of calls that the customer needs to make into the contact center when the customer needs it. Endang said that it could be a channel of their choice is not just voice. It could be WhatsApp, Facebook, or even WeChat. We don’t have to make them wait. 

We can pick themselves and when they get into the agent, we are empowering the agent to make sure that the problems are solved. She also explains that agents could solve queries faster and accurately. In the end, our service will give positive sentiment to the customer. 

How do we do this? Endang said that we are doing it with automation that is done in a digital service driven. Then, in this digital service-driven interaction, we are doing a lot of automation that we could do in proactively reaching out to the customer before getting into the contact center when it is necessary. Endang said that we are also empowering the agent to do a cross-sell and upsell proactively to the customer. 

She also said there is another thing if we do that will be engaging the customer with our organization. She said we will be able to major it by providing feedback, asking the customer to fill up the feedback to any touchpoint before, during, and after the contact center. (ANF)