Case Studies: TELUS

Increase Conversions with a Better Online Experience

Company Snapshot

Name: TELUS Communications
Industry: Telecommunications
HQ: Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Employees: 36,400 (2009)
Website: www.telus.com and www.telusmobility.com

The Challenge

TELUS, a leading Canadian telecommunications company, receives a growing portion of its business – and thus, its revenue – through securing new customers online.

TELUS saw the opportunity to better serve these new customers and to increase sales, via a more supportive online sales experience. TELUS wanted to:

• Increase online sales conversion rates
• Improve the online order experience
• Target certain sales opportunities, such as postpaid mobility customers

In addition, TELUS wanted a flexible way to support continually changing promotions and special offers.

The Solution

TELUS turned to TouchCommerce, a leading conversion marketing company, to develop a live-interaction, online-engagement strategy with the goal of improving customer conversions and targeting specific product sales opportunities.

Live-agent engagement was implemented in targeted order flows and stages to offer customers chat assistance in either French or English. A live engagement is provided either on customer request, or is proactively offered if customers display signs of difficulty in the order processes.

“In the sales funnel, a customer might not be clear about what he should be doing,” explains Cam Anderson, a senior business analyst with TELUS web-channel operations. “Providing a live interaction at that critical moment helps cut through any confusion, enabling the customer to carry on and place the order.”

"The results were almost immediate and sealed the deal for us to broadly deploy the TouchCommerce solution in our online purchasing website."
- Jennifer Bramley

The Results

During the first six months of serving TELUS customers, TouchCommerce posted some impressive results:

• An 11% conversion rate with live interaction, vs. 3% unassisted – a 267% improvement based on control-group tracking, for customers offered a chat opportunity, 11% on average placed an order after engaging in a live chat while only 3% on average would have ordered without a chat. This represented a huge boost in conversions.
• TELUS deployed a Touch Commerce post-chat survey to ensure positive reception by customers. Satisfaction levels were monitored continuously and achieved goals set. The following was a typical customer quote: "The chat is fantastic!!! Nice to have someone right online to answer questions. VERY impressed." – TELUS customer
• A 75% increase in sales of postpaid mobility services that originated with TouchCommerce agents. When TouchCommerce’s solution was first implemented, only 33% of prospects who interacted with live agents purchased postpaid mobility services. Working diligently with TELUS, the live chat agents refined their messaging -- and by the end of the six months, that number had risen to 57%.

"The results were almost immediate and sealed the deal for us to broadly deploy the TouchCommerce solution in our online purchasing process," says Jennifer Bramley, Manager of Web Channel Operations at TELUS.

The Benefits

Improving Sales and Value-Add Opportunities
By offering live interaction and support during the customer search and purchase process, TELUS realized a significant increase in conversions without added burden to its own sales staff. In addition, TouchCommerce live-interaction agents offered immediate assistance to prospects interested by special offers to increase the number and value of orders.

Capturing the Voice of the Customer
TouchCommerce’s services include a post-chat survey that captures key attributes of overall satisfaction with the live-interaction experience and specific agent attributes. The survey can also be used:

• To determine customer satisfaction with the TELUS website
• To glean feedback on customer satisfaction with specific product or promotional activities
• To quantify the impact of live interaction in the customer’s purchase decision
• To measure call deflection

Targeting Sales Opportunities
TouchCommerce was able to fulfill TELUS’s goal of targeting specific service types. For example, focusing on the postpaid mobility segment resulted in a dramatic shift in the percentage of prospects who were buying postpaid mobile services versus prepaid phones. TouchCommerce agents were also able to accurately target qualified prospects to promote TELUS TV, resulting in increased revenue.

Offering Actionable Feedback and a Close Partnership
"The benefits of having TouchCommerce embedded throughout our web properties goes beyond the numbers," notes Ms. Bramley. "For example, because TouchCommerce agents interact with customers in real time, they are able to convey critical customer feedback and site experience information to TELUS quickly."

TouchCommerce personnel work very closely with TELUS executives, to constantly refine and update tactics by optimizing business rules and to provide supporting results and analysis.

"I can’t emphasize enough the wonderful close contact TouchCommerce gives us," says Mr. Anderson. "They meet with us every week to see how we’re doing and give us weekly, monthly, and quarterly results. They’re the reason we were able to so effectively target the postpaid mobility segment."

About TELUS
TELUS (TSX: T, T.A; NYSE: TU) is a leading national telecommunications company in Canada, with $9.6 billion of annual revenue and 12 million customer connections including 6.7 million wireless subscribers, 3.8 million wireline network access lines and 1.2 million Internet subscribers and 228,000 TELUS TV customers. Led since 2000 by President and CEO, Darren Entwistle, TELUS provides a wide range of communications products and services including data, Internet protocol (IP), voice, entertainment and video.



In support of our philosophy to give where we live, TELUS, our team members and retirees have contributed $185 million to charitable and not-for-profit organizations and volunteered 3.5 million hours of service to local communities since 2000. Nine TELUS Community Boards across Canada lead TELUS' local philanthropic initiatives. TELUS was honoured to be named the most outstanding philanthropic corporation globally for 2010 by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, becoming the first Canadian company to receive this prestigious international recognition.



For more information about TELUS, please visit telus.com.

About TouchCommerce