A Digital Support Channel (DSC) is a term used by Fuze to describe a suite of technology that provides members, customers, partners and staff (consumers) with a compelling reason to use your online support channel.  A DSC also unifies all your support channels to ensure that your support is consistent and informed across all your support channels.  What's more a DSC captures everything, providing you with rich consumer insights for use in providing more personalized support and in targeted marketing offers.  You guessed it, the Fuze Suite is built around the concept of a DSC. 

The primary components of a DSC include:

  • Available 7x24 to anyone with a Web browser.

  • A highly searchable knowledge base containing broad public information about products, services, logistical information, supporting information to allow related research  (such as personal finance information for financial institutions) and internal private information, such as internal procedures, policies and other information only viewable by staff or partners.

  • Knowledge base alerts that allow consumers to sign-up to be automatically notified of changes and additions to sections of the knowledge base information that are of interest to them.

  • FOR ALL YOUR CONSUMERS: The ability to securely ask questions, AND securely get answers, online.  

  • The necessary front-end systems infrastructure to demonstrate to the consumer that the channel is actively managed.  Outward indications of a managed channel include:

    • Dynamic knowledge base content continually evolving based on actual usage and consumer feedback.

    • Online notification that question was received and how long to expect before receiving an answer.

    • Email notification that question was received and how long to expect before receiving an answer.

    • Ability to view all prior questions online.

    • Ability to clarify question or ask additional questions if response provided does not completely resolve inquiry.

    • Regardless of the number of staff or channels involved, all interactions to resolve the inquiry are captured in one place.

  • The necessary back-end infrastructure to actively manage the channel.  Example components include:

    • Knowledge base (KB) usage, consumer feedback and consumer (KB) searches can be readily reviewed.

    • Information easily added to knowledge base by non-technical staff after going through appropriate approvals.  Knowledge base naturally grows when questions not found in knowledge base are answered.

    • Consumer inquiries automatically routed to staff with appropriate skills.

    • Staff assigned inquiries automatically notified when incident assigned to them.

    • Ability to easily identify subject matter experts and request help in resolving inquiries.

    • Ability to resolve the inquiry by sending the consumer the answer, a link to the unique item in the knowledge base that addresses the inquiry, or a link to a secure page containing the answer.

    • Metrics to ensure that service level expectations are met or exceeded.

  • The ability to easily capture inquiries from any channel and to use the knowledge base when providing support from any channel. Ideally you want pages in your DSC to automatically pop with relevant consumer information from the operational systems used to support consumers through your phone and in-person support.

  • All consumer self-service and assisted-service support is tracked and readily available for usage in providing more personalized support and to extend targeted offers based on the buying propensity shown by the consumer while getting support.