Aspect Software Helps Sharekhan Focus On Growth

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Thanks to Aspect EnsemblePro, managing customer service has become a breeze and we can focus on achieving our business goals," says Ketan Parekh, CTO, Sharekhan Limited.

The Business Challenges
• Easily access customer portfolio information in a secure contact centre environment.
• Seamlessly integrate with back-end applications and streamline customer data to contact centre agents.
• Easily manage upgrades and technology issues to accommodate growing customer base.


The Solution
Sharekhan selected Aspect EnsemblePro from the Aspect Software Unified IP Contact Center product line, a unified contact centre solution delivering advanced multichannel contact capabilities, because it provided the best total value over other solutions evaluated. It enabled Sharekhan to meet customer service needs for inbound call handling, voice self service, predictive outbound dialling, call blending, call monitoring and recording, and creating outbound marketing campaigns, amongst other capabilities.


The Results
• Increased agent efficiency and productivity
• Enabled company to execute proactive customer service calls and expand services offered to customers
• Enhanced call monitoring for improved service quality

Financial services is a highly competitive and volume-driven industry which demands high standards of customer service, effective consultation and quick deliverables. This is something Sharekhan Limited, a retail financial services provider based in India, understands. The company offers several user-friendly services for customers to manage their stock portfolios, including online capabilities linked to an information database to help customers confidently invest, and inbound customer services using voice self-service technology and customer service agents handling telephone orders from clients.


Managing Business Growth
With a customer base of more than 260,000, Sharekhan continues to grow at a fast pace. The company required reliable contact centre technology that could handle its growing customer base and expanding services portfolio. Downtime in the contact centre, even for a short period of time, was unacceptable as it could result in financial losses and more importantly, a decrease in customer loyalty.

As a result, customer satisfaction was a top priority in Sharekhan's agenda. Its primary objective was to help and support its customers in managing their shares portfolio in the best possible manner. In anticipation of market trends, which estimated that multiple applications, up-selling and cross-selling amongst stockbrokers would grow in the near future, Sharekhan needed a sound solution to manage complex customer queries.

"Unfortunately, technology turned out to be our biggest nightmare," said Ketan Parekh, chief technology officer, Sharekhan. "The agents and even senior management spent a copious amount of time-resolving routine technical issues and other day-to-day problems. As a result, our business growth and expansion plans took a back seat. We started losing focus of our business goals and that was detrimental to our business. We needed an effective solution, fast."


Search for an Ideal Solution
Sharekhan searched for a vendor who could resolve the technology integration issues in the contact centre and get the organisation back on its growth track with minimal complications.

"Aspect Software, boasting a strong brand name and intense market penetration, was a natural choice," Parekh added. "Our conviction in choosing Aspect Software was further strengthened after meeting with the company's team of professionals. The team articulately demonstrated the capabilities of the solutions to us and committed themselves to providing world-class technical support to resolve day-to- day technical issues. It was definitely more than we could have asked for."

Impressed with their product offerings, Sharekhan selected Aspect Software to implement hundreds of seats of Aspect EnsemblePro at its contact centre in Mumbai, India. Aspect EnsemblePro is a complete contact centre solution that unites inbound, outbound and blended multichannel contact (voice, e-mail, the Web and fax), while also delivering voice portal, recording and quality management, and unified reporting and administration capabilities. With clear goals in mind, the Aspect Software team implemented the solution and in the process forged a strong relationship with Sharekhan.

"Through active counselling and technical support, Aspect Software aptly demonstrated its expertise and leadership in contact centre solutions," Parekh said. "Even when our telephony provider failed to make necessary customisations to their equipments, Aspect Software called on their telephony experts to prepare new binaries and codes to be applied on the Aspect EnsemblePro. Aspect Software engineers also shared industry best practices with us."

The voice self-service capabilities in Aspect EnsemblePro seamlessly integrated with Sharekhan's customer information database, without any customisation. Supported by Aspect EnsemblePro, Sharekhan can now effortlessly handle customers' calls and day-to-day problems quickly, and offer a variety of new services to its customers.


Powered by Aspect EnsemblePro
The voice portal capability in Aspect EnsemblePro verifies up every customer call and prompts the caller for their customer identification and PIN number. Once these are entered on the phone, Aspect EnsemblePro communicates with the Sharekhan's backend customer databases through SQL and Oracle, and requests an authorisation. Upon authorisation by the Sharekhan system, Aspect EnsemblePro routes the call to the next available agent along with all of the customer's data. If the caller's information is incorrect after three attempts, it is not authorised by the Sharekhan system and the call is rejected. If the caller does not have a customer ID, the caller is presented the option of being routed to customer service, or being designated as a Depository Participant (DP) enquiry or a new account.

In addition to the inbound capabilities, Sharekhan was able to add fully-automated outbound call services with Aspect EnsemblePro. The solution enables Sharekhan to execute proactive outbound customer service campaigns, using tools such as automated outbound dialling and information feeds on the top 10 stocks of the market daily to customers. Similarly, automated and personalised market feedback and intelligence are regularly provided to Sharekhan's portfolio management services' customers through the solution's outbound dialling capabilities.

"With the automation of processes, our agents have become more productive because their time is better utilised and, of course, the level of customer service has gone up considerably. The management team is able to analyse and monitor the quality of customer service and make business critical decisions more effectively," Parekh concluded.

Motivated by the success with Aspect Software products at its facility at Raghuwanshi Mill (Mumbai), Sharekhan has plans to set up a disaster recovery site and is working with Aspect Software to provide technology for its second contact centre.