Web Self-Service with 'Instant Answers'

Since 2005, Payoneer has helped thousands of Web businesses and other companies deliver compensation to employees, suppliers, contractors, and partners via prepaid MasterCard debit cards. The New York–based company has securely delivered these types of payments to hundreds of thousands of people in 180 countries around the world.

And while the company boasts world-class customer service, its call center agents were being overburdened with routine questions from account holders having problems making payments, changing passwords, logging into their accounts, or seeing account balances.

In August 2010, the company turned to NanoRep, an Israeli help desk software company that provided it with a platform that allows customers to find instant, accurate answers to their questions on their own.

Now, visitors to Payoneer's Web site can type their questions into the NanoRep frame that appears automatically when they click on the Contact Us link or as a floating widget when they click on the FAQ link. They can type their questions in any of 35 supported languages. NanoRep pulls the answers from an internal knowledge base of more than 140 FAQs covering everything from activating and using the cards to managing accounts to what to do if a card is lost or stolen.

The NanoRep tool currently finds the correct answers to customer questions about 80 percent of the time, When an answer is not found, the customer is given the option of reaching out to an agent via email through a link at the bottom of the NanoRep frame. Customers can also contact support via phone or live Web chat powered by LivePerson.

"Only half of the cardholders are escalated to an agent after they ask their question and don't find the answer," says Yonit Adali, customer support manager at Payoneer.

Since installing the NanoRep tool, Payoneer agents now receive 40 percent fewer contacts. "People used to send an email to customer support. Now they type in their questions in NanoRep and get instant answers," says Itay Tamir, customer support supervisor at Payoneer.

When queries do get escalated to an agent, the tool automatically provides the agent with the question posed. This expedites service, resulting in increased first call resolution and shorter wait times.

NanoRep provides the added bonus of 24/7/365 availability, while agents are only available to take calls or respond to email or live chat from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sunday through Friday.

To further boost accuracy, NanoRep is a scalable, self-learning tool. Payoneer entered its FAQs into the knowledge base, and NanoRep tracks all queries and automatically adds to the knowledge base any answers provided by agents. And, when customers ask the same question in many different ways, NanoRep learns from that as well.

"It doesn't matter how detailed your Web site is; if customers can't find the information they're looking for in seconds, they're gone," says Doron Herzlich, CEO of NanoRep. "NanoRep was designed to answer customers' questions instantly and accurately, minimizing support costs and converting site visitors into paying customers for start-ups and enterprises alike."

NanoRep provides Payoneer with complete dashboards every month that tell the company how many questions were asked, which questions were asked, and whether the customer found the answer. The analytics track which answers were provided instantly from the growing knowledge base and which ones came from an agent. "It's a good way for us to see what our customers care about," Tamir says. "We can see what types of questions they are seeking answers to."

Using that information, Tamir can then tailor the knowledge base to address the most pressing customer concerns and make sure that the information being provided is current and accurate. "It's all about maintenance of NanoRep," he says. "We have to add new questions and answers as we add new products and services."

As an added means of support, Payoneer has made available a community forum with about 3,000 members; the forum is powered by Invision Power Services' IP Board software and contains more than 1,200 member posts.

"We wanted to decrease the number of tickets and emails to the agents. We wanted to let our employees do other things besides customer support, like signing up new clients," Tamir says. NanoRep has allowed Payoneer to do that and more.

"And, instead of hiring additional agents, we saved those positions by using NanoRep," Adali adds.

The Payoff

Since installing NanoRep on its Web site, Payoneer has seen:

• 40 percent fewer contacts to live agents;
• half the number of cardholders escalated to an agent after they ask their question and don't find the answer; and
• customers provided with the right answer on the first try 80 percent of the time.

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