PGGM - Dutch pension fund
The Client
Pensionfund PGGM insures (former) employees in the health care industry, almost 2 million in total. The goal of PGGM is to offer a complete pension solution for modest pension payments. In this strategy, the use of Internet plays an important role as main communication channel with its customers for two reasons: keeping cost to a minimum by reducing calls in the call center and learning from the questions of customers on the web site to improve the communication.
The Challenge
A couple of years ago, PGGM noticed that the need for information on pension plans was steadily increasing. Due to some political changes, pension plans became an even more important topic for many (former) employees in the health care industry. The result? More and more people wanted personal advice: "how will those changes affect my situation?" The number of inbound calls in the call center exploded with a more than 100% increase per year. To deal with this enormous need for information, PGGM started a significant internet initiative. The use of the internet self service options was quickly adopted by the customers, but still a large number of common and relatively easy questions kept coming into the call center. Karin Dompselaar, PGGM: "The costs increased significantly as a result of the increase in the number of calls. Therefore, we were looking for a solution to answers these common questions quickly and at low cost, so the customer contact center would get the time to answer the more complex questions. At the same time, we wanted to gain more insight into the information needs of our customers, so we could improve our one-to-one communication over time."
The Solution
Q-go's website search solution proofed to be the solution. In close cooperation with PGGM, Q-go introduced "Ask PGGM" on the PGGM website. This online answering system allows customers to ask their questions in their own words, and the Q-go natural language technology makes sure that the customers are provided with relevant answers instantly, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Additionally, PGGM gains insight into the nature of the questions of its customers and can adjust its website content proactively to make sure that it better matches the interests of its customers.
The Successes
The internet strategy of PGGM has paid off in a big way: the number of calls in the customer contact center has decreased with 20%, compared to previous periods. This results in significant cost savings for PGGM and an improvement of its customer service at the same time. The agents at the call center can help customers with complex questions better as result of the decrease of calls, and PGGM has learned the language of its customers through the analysis of the online questions. Flyers, brochures and online content has been adjusted to make sure that PGGM addresses its customer in the right tone of voice. Finally, PGGM has started initiatives to address hot topics in mailings and news letters to its customers.
