In the realm of artificial intelligence, data is king. From your FAQs to your product description, for retailers every bit of available information can be used by AI to learn and ultimately reply to customers.
The accuracy and representativeness of these building blocks will determine the quality of the automation. If your dataset is not optimised, AI does not have much of a chance of reaching its full potential.
As Michael Podolsky, Cofounder and CEO of Pissed Consumer, a consumer review platform, recently wrote in Forbes, “Ultimately, AI is only as good as the data it is given, so it is just as important that we continue developing the sources that give us the best data and ensure any tools we adopt go towards creating excellent customer service experiences and more effective CS agents.”
Whether you are aware of it or not, every day you are creating new data, namely through your agents. As they work, they create information that can be used to train an AI to improve processes and automate repetitive responses..
What are wrap codes?
Fairly common in the world of customer service, especially in the call centre environment, Wrap Codes are tags that agents use to categorise tickets as they come in or are created.
Suppose an agent finishes a call and is allowed a few minutes to input into the system some information about the query they’ve just handled - things like the reason for contact and whether or not the customer needs a follow-up.
He will usually do this by choosing from a drop down menu that lists a number of recurring reasons customers get in touch for. Listed could be categories like “Delivery issue” or “Product information request” that the agent selects to identify the type of contact he just dealt with. These options are what we call Wrap Codes.
Heads of Customer Service everywhere will use the information created by Wrap Codes to analyse and improve their team’s workflow. Although Wrap Codes can’t answer all questions, they can provide relevant insight into the nature of contacts if designed with intention. After all, if 67% of your contacts are due to delivery issues, you definitely need to look at your courier service.
This information is vital to improving customer service and ensuring that agents have all the information they need to answer questions properly and efficiently. However, as Wrap Codes are input manually, they leave a lot of margin for error. Let’s look at some of the most common issues that can come up.
Quantity matters when it comes to wrap codes
Most industry experts seem to agree that, with regards to Wrap Codes, the fewer you have the better. The reasoning behind this rule of thumb is that, “the more you have, the less likely they are going to be used accurately by frontline agents”, says outsourcing expert Derek Gallimore.
If accuracy drops as the number of Wrap Code increases, you might be tempted to reduce the number of options an agent can pick from. But the flip side of having only a few Wrap Codes is that they might be too broad and thus not comprehensive enough to catch all the details about a customer contact.
When your Wrap Codes lack accuracy and representativeness, they won’t provide analytics that are actually relevant to your business.
For example, it’s common to find situations where the Wrap Code describes the outcome, but not the issue. Let’s take the Wrap Code "I haven't received my order” for instance. This could be because the order has not been shipped yet, it got lost in transit, it's been stolen or maybe there's been a massive delay with the carrier. But if you put down "Stolen item" or something to that effect, it doesn’t always provide enough information to describe that specific situation.
On the opposite side of the quantity spectrum, the Australian Customer Experience Professionals Association warns about having too many Wrap Codes. “Because they are so easy to implement, data-hungry management can suddenly want to measure a vast array of things so you end up with way too many codes for agents to accurately enter.”
So you can have too little or too many Wrap Codes or, even worst, just have the wrong ones. With so many possible missteps, we invite you to have a look at our step-by-step guide to Wrap Codes below.
5 tips to improve your wrap code input
Start at the beginning by looking at your process: When and how does the agent select a Wrap Code? Do they have enough time to go through all the options or are they under pressure?
Make sure everyone is on the same page by providing your agents with regular training on using Wrap Codes. Share your expectations around their completion and how important they are to the company goals. They’re more likely to put some effort into picking the correct Wrap Code if they understand their purpose.
Check and scrutinise your Wrap Codes. “Some call types are more difficult to identify. Regular audits can be beneficial in detecting call types that do not have an associated code”, says Derek Gallimore. This can also help to eliminate Wrap Codes that are no longer relevant to your business because of process changes.
The Australian Customer Experience Professionals Association recommends you provide agents with feedback on their usage of the Wrap Codes. “Show them the results, show them their results compared to the team average. Find an issue? Address it with the agent and explain why they are important.”
Don’t be scared of bringing automation into the process. DigitalGenius can automatically categorise your customer tickets into one of more than 60 ecommerce cases using AI. It will save time and money and prevent a lot of errors that come from manual input. Our customers use our intent detection as the first step in their automations.
What are you doing with the data once you have it?
So you’ve gone through all this process to successfully categorise your customer tickets, what now? The worst thing you can do is nothing. There is tremendous value in seeing what issues keep cropping up time and time again. Many of our customers use the data that we provide to raise issues to the wider business that ultimately improves the overall customer experience – for example, by identifying which shipping carriers perform best in every location they ship to.
Want to know more about what DigitalGenius can do for your business? Get in touch with our team today
