Genesys has announced at G-Force London that Vodafone Germany, Groupama Rhône-Alpes Auvergne and DNB Bank are the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) Region winners of its ninth annual Customer Innovation Awards. 

All of the winners have made major breakthroughs in using innovative Customer Experience solutions to transform the way they interact with customers across all of today’s many touchpoints, from contact centres to social media to mobile apps.

The Genesys Customer Innovation Awards is an annual program that leverages a panel of experts to evaluate companies that deliver innovative and engaging customer experiences with ground breaking results. The winners were chosen based on impact on customer experience, impact on business and impact on customer engagement.

The winners are:

* Vodafone Germany – this leading European mobile carrier implemented a comprehensive customer care solution with Genesys, featuring interactive voice response (IVR) and natural language support to increase personalisation and service precision. As a result of the Genesys solution, the average speed of answer decreased by 30 seconds, call abandonment decreased by 35%, and self-service call resolution increased by 15%.

The company has also experienced a massive 19-point spike in customer satisfaction. Vodafone is now planning to expand its Genesys usage to other mediums such as chat and social media to obtain a full 360-degree view of all customer interactions via one powerful and efficient system.

* GROUPAMA Rhône-Alpes Auvergne – this innovative French insurance company recently launched GranVillage, a free social media platform for producers allowing sellers to connect with nearby potential customers. GranVillage is designed to make it simple for local vendors who are not Internet or social media savvy to use a simple program to reach customers.

Using the Genesys Customer Experience Platform, Groupama is able to help vendors make one phone call to contact centre agents and have that one interaction lead to customer engagement across multiple mobile and social media platforms. Customers can use the same phone number to send an SMS, to call, to reach the social media voicemail (speech-to-text) or to connect to an agent to post their offer on GranVillage.

* DNB Bank – Norway’s largest financial services group implemented a multi-channel strategy to better serve their 1,6-million customers, incorporating phone, email, chat and social. DNB recognised that no agent can have all the skills required, so it decided to train agents to become experts in specific areas. DNB identified over 200 different competencies and skills involved in resolving customer inquiries.

The challenge was to ensure the best mix of agents with the right skills and competencies were available to resolve customer enquiries the first time. Using speech recognition and the Genesys Customer Experience platform’s IVR capabilities, DNB was able to recognise over 200 unique call categories. DNB used the Genesys Workforce Management (WFM) applications to help forecast demand and schedule agents’ time.

These WFM applications are fully integrated with the Genesys platform routing and other services. As a result, DNB now generates extremely accurate forecasts of demand. WFM has radically improved the morale of the DNB workforce. Agent skills have been improved (through quicker issue resolution where agents were previously struggling). In addition, team leaders can now listen alongside the agents and together resolve issues.

“These inspirational stories demonstrate how companies are using the Genesys Customer Experience Platform to deliver great business results and at the same time provide their customers a great experience,” says Reed Henry, chief marketing officer, Genesys. “We look forward to working with other innovative companies like Vodafone Germany, Groupama Rhône-Alpes Auvergne and DNB Bank as they embark on their CX transformations.”