Case Study: Nespresso

CUSTOMER PROFILE

International coffee machine innovator Nespresso sells and supports its machines and coffee capsules in several major national markets worldwide. Customer service leaders in a number of these territories collaborate to apply NiCE Interaction Analytics to mine customer data for valuable insights on a wide variety of topics. A standardized approach to sentiment queries helps leaders across regions understand the needs of their markets. These insights can also be applied to uncover shared challenges, such as behavioral or technological gaps at different outsourcing providers used by various Nespresso national offices

01 THE BEFORE

Global footprint, localized insights

Nespresso has established a high-profile international brand around its Nespresso line since its introduction nearly 40 years ago, with strong uptake in several key international markets. Customer service in most markets is operated on a nation-by-nation basis, with offices implementing their own customer care strategies. Leaders wanted more opportunities to share actionable best practices, particularly around post-sales engagement topics which can be complex over the lifespan of Nespresso ownership.

02 DESIRE TO CHANGE

Opportunities buried in volumes of customer calls

Nespresso wanted to identify the root causes of persistent repeat calls in pursuit of an overall better customer experience. One product line, in particular, was flagged for surprisingly high and consistent rates of negative feedback, with some customers calling as many as eight times for support over a short time frame. “It’s an obsession for Nespresso to make things as effortless as possible for our customers,” said Samira Zaoudi, quality manager for Nespresso Be-Lux (Belgium and Luxembourg). “In order to do that, we needed to understand if our procedures are too complex, or if our coffee specialists are not providing sufficient answers, or if our knowledge database is insufficient.”

In other regions, leaders sought opportunities to meaningfully optimize investments in customer care. “We saw average handle time for technical calls increasing significantly,” said Sriparna Sen, Customer Experience Manager for Nespresso Canada. “And at our volume, a few minutes increase in AHT translates to millions of dollars spent.”

03 THE SOLUTION

Unlocking insights from customer interactions worldwide

Beginning in the US market before expanding to Canada and several European nations, Nespresso implemented NiCE Interaction Analytics to conduct a wide range of analyses on calls with both business and consumer clients. With deep speech insights and automatically generated topic lists to spark further exploration and discussion, Nespresso customer care leaders now have access to a much wider range of voice-of-the-customer insights. “Interaction Analytics takes us from understanding only a very limited sample of our calls to much more extensive insight and data-driven analysis,” Sri said.

North American leadership set up a series of standardized customer sentiment metrics, later made available to Nespresso teams in other countries. Those offices have also learned to apply Interaction Analytics to insights stored locally as well as with BPO providers. “We all benefited from the work they did editing the tool and standardizing the queries,” Samira said. “And introducing all of the contacts from our outsourcer and having a wider sample of calls helps our team identify more customer experience topics to work on.”

In addition to sentiment scoring, Interaction Analytics identifies call characteristics that can reveal agent behavioral or outsourcer technical challenges, including audio issues and extremely high non-talk time for both parties, as well as short calls that represent potential disconnections. These items can then be flagged and brought to BPO providers for discussion and remedy. In some markets, Interaction Analytics insights are shared with other departments, including technical experts, e-commerce, and marketing to help expand their understanding of real-world customer experiences.

04 THE RESULTS

Individual and shared successes through a deeper understanding of customer issues

Changes in policy, procedure, and outsourcer accountability uncovered through analysis have benefited Nespresso and its customers on several dimensions.

• The Nespresso Be-Lux team developed a dashboard based on Interaction Analytics Series data to identify the root cause of repeated calls around a machine maintenance issue. Creating and promoting a chatbot to address the issue has increased self-service solutions for the problem twelvefold, which also reduces overall call volume.
• A root cause analysis found that a call workflow told customers to call back after completing a lengthy process offline, but many customers did not follow up. The workflow has been changed to scheduling an agent callback, improving successful resolution and satisfaction rates.
• A similar root cause analysis found that callback would help improve outcomes and CSAT because many owners call when not actually near their Nespresso machine.
• In Canada, Interaction Analytics provides insights for new cross-selling opportunities during sales calls. “The insights and a listening session with our internal management team delivered some wonderful findings, opportunities in sales calls that agents aren’t seizing properly, so there’s a feedback and coaching process now to improve those sales results,” Sri said. “It’s enabling our analysis, action, and reaction.”
• The US market launched a way for customers to securely enter credit card details through the IVR system to track how often payment needed to be re-initialized due to agent or customer error. With Interaction Analytics, Nespresso found a 28% improvement in IVR payment completions.

Multiple markets have also successfully taken action on calls with high non-talk time. In Switzerland, frank discussions with the outsourcer have reduced the number of high-non-talk time calls by 50%. “Interaction Analytics helps us react quickly to issues that can arise on a daily basis, from invoicing to machine issues to promotions,” said Zoraya Hofmann, customer experience success expert for Nespresso Switzerland.

05 THE FUTURE

Enabling Analysis and Action Through Data

Nespresso will continue rolling out Interaction Analytics insights to key global markets, with The Netherlands and Brazil being the latest markets to go live in early 2024. The organization also plans to use NiCE Enlighten AI for CSAT to explore the value of empathy analysis in conjunction with customer feedback.