Tal Cohen of ClickFox

Q. Tell us about ClickFox A. ClickFox is the pioneer in Customer Behavior Intelligence. We optimize interactive, self-service experiences to significantly improve ROI.    Q. What do you mean by 'Customer Behavior Intelligence' (CBI)? A. Customer Behavior Intelligence is the ability to define, measure and analyze actual customer behavior in aggregate within a system in the context of the enterprise's business objectives.  This vision enables companies to confidently align their goals with the needs and desires of their customers.   Q. How is this process implemented? A. The ClickFox solution begins with a model of the client's IVR, Web site, etc.  The model could be just one system or it could span multiple channels.  Once the model is built, the customer data (gathered from call logs, Web logs or other user records) is mapped to the model, graphically presenting what's actually happening in these systems.  It's quite powerful. Clickfox's interactive AI, visualization toolkit can now be deployed to allow the enterprise to manage all of their interactive systems.   Q. How is it different from other forms of CRM tools? A. Most of the current CRM analytical tools provide the capability to slice and dice customer and transactional data. Some BI tools provide simulation and clustering functionality. ClickFox is totally unique because our technology is the only one that provides the framework to tie three concepts - the enterprise business objective, the interactive system as implemented, and the system's true utilization.  The resulting intelligence enables the enterprise to articulate a business objective, see how that objective is manifested in the interactive system (Web, IVR, etc.), then create and measure the appropriate metrics to see exactly how it is utilized by their customers.  

Q. Discuss the improvements you have seen due to CBI deployments across each form of self-service channel and your thoughts on why the results vary for each channel.

A. IVR - Our work with a state Medicare agency quickly revealed that over half of the callers were not making it past the "date-of-birth" step in the IVR.  These callers were either hanging up or pressing zero for an agent.  As ClickFox modeled the script, the IVR structure and callers' behavior revealed an inconsistent request for a # sign after data entry was found to be very confusing.  Fixing this simple scripting problem alone saved the agency millions of dollars annually.    Speech - A large speech implementation project was put on an extremely aggressive timeline for completion.  Failure to meet the deadline date would cause the outsourcer to incur loss of revenue as well as jeopardize the relationship with its client.  ClickFox was brought in to rapidly identify speech recognition and user errors in the new solution.  As a result, the outsourcer was able to get a real understanding of the customers' reactions to the speech technology on aggregate and prioritize improvement efforts based on where customers were experiencing the most frustration. Using ClickFox, the outsourcer was able to prove a much higher subscription rate among the callers who were utilizing the new speech technology verses those callers using the DTMF functionality.    Web - The online bill pay function on a ClickFox client's Web site was achieving increased user traffic each month, but a large number of users were leaving the site at the authentication step.  Using the ClickFox solution, the client was able to model a desired behavioral outcome and discovered from the archived outcome that a code required to log in was only available on the customer's paper bill.  Once the authentication process was changed to allow other methods to login, the percentage of customers using the bill pay function increased dramatically, resulting in a multi-million dollar annual impact.   Cross-channel - A large pharmaceutical company has deployed ClickFox across its Web site, call center and sales force automation/CRM system to monitor and improve its ability to inform, educate and serve the doctors who currently prescribe or may prescribe their drugs.  The goal is to optimize the use of each service channel, including the company's expensive sales force, who call on doctors face-to-face and manage the sales and marketing resources to achieve higher prescription rates.     Q. Discuss vertical areas where you have seen the most improvement since deploying CBI and your thoughts on why these verticals have seen such improvements. A. Financial and telecommunications organizations are seeing dramatic results with ClickFox because of the sheer volume of customer interactions they face in their call centers (via their agents and IVRs) and on their Web sites.  Also healthcare, insurance and travel organizations have the volume and complexity of data that greatly benefit by understanding their customers' behavior.   Q. What vertical areas are you focusing on in the future and why? A. We have had the most interest from financial organizations recently because the ROI is so significant for them.  ClickFox can help them direct their customers to the desired service channel.  If live agents can spend just a few more minutes a day on strategic activities, such as describing new services or resolving complex customer service issues, rather than reciting account balances or other information that should be provided in an automated way, the benefit to the bottom line is very real.   A recent survey done by one of our financial clients revealed that their customers' requirements were really very simple when it came to doing business with them.  Make it fast and make it easy.  By providing new insight into actual customer behavior, ClickFox can help our clients do just that.   Q. Who are your partners and what do you look for when wanting to partner with a company? A. ClickFox partners with integrators to bundle ClickFox technology with their consulting services. We also partner with hardware and software providers that cater to large organizations' telecommunication needs. On a technology level, we've joined forces with IVR and speech vendors and call center outsourcers who have seen how easily ClickFox can help their customers optimize their self-service channels.  ClickFox is willing to consider partnership with any software vendor, consulting firm, or outsourcer who would like to offer this powerful, innovative technology to its clients.   Q. Any last thoughts? A. We believe that once our customers optimize their self-service channels individually using ClickFox, the next step is cross-channel optimization, aligning all customer-facing systems for a consistent customer experience.  Some of our customers are actually doing this today, but most organizations are still discovering the value of Customer Behavior Intelligence one system at a time. The cross-channel analysis framework we provide really arms the organization with a huge competitive advantage. It enables enterprises to quantify and measure strategic business objectives for real bottom line impact.