The Evolution of the Customer Experience
We used to pick up the phone and call for whatever we needed. Find a flight, book a hotel, check our bank accounts, check on […]
Contact Center–Time to Optimize!
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Two things happening are leaving people scratching their heads. Everyone is talking about a recession and the technical layoffs are now a who’s who of technical leaders. According to https://layoffstracker.com/ Amazon, Meta/Facebook, Zoom, Microsoft, Yahoo, Alphabet, IBM, PayPal, Dell, and Salesforce have all laid off thousands of coworkers. It’s not limited to tech, Baxter Healthcare, Boeing, Tesco, Phillips, SAP, 3M, Capital One, Goldman Sachs to name a few, have also laid off tens of thousands.
The numbers are staggering, yet the most recent jobs report showed an increase in 500,000 new jobs despite the layoffs, inflation and accelerating interest rates. Regardless of the numbers, consumers and companies are looking to find ways to tighten their belt and there are fewer ways to grow revenue. Existing relationships are ever more critical. So much effort is expended to “acquire” a client but then the “retention” of those same clients is inadequate to say the least. Think about how easy it is to buy something but how difficult things can become when there is a problem. Southwest Airlines is a great example. Over the holidays, no one could get anyone to answer a question and even their internal communications failed. TV, Cable, Internet, phone service—all easy to buy but if you have a problem it’s a disaster. People love Amazon because you don’t have to talk to anyone, they are quick to solve problems, offer refunds and a client can drop a package at a local site for a return. If clients have a fast track to problem identification and resolution, they will remain loyal and continue buying. It takes one poor experience for clients and organizations to begin looking for alternatives.
On the commercial side, self-service, quick paths to answers, language translation, and personalization all are driving client loyalty. Customer experience is no longer a generic topic but a function with measurable metrics and accountability at the executive committee level.
Customer Experience Officer (CXO) is now a mainstay within the C-Suite. According to Gartner, in 2020 almost 90% of organizations have a CXO or CXO equivalent up from 35% in 2017.
Why?
- Because data analytics, omni-channel (more than just voice/chat/email), integration with other applications and speed to resolution are keys to client service today.
- Amazingly, many organizations are still not using workforce management to better forecast agent staffing needs.
- Same question getting asked over and over? —Let’s make it easier to get an answer
- High turnover and lack of tools for ramp? Use AI for agent assist to better anticipate questions.
- Lack of integration between a website data set and contact center agent? Engage your website through a chatbot or self-service edge.
The next few blogs will offer innovative ideas and partners who deliver them to better engage clients. No longer does an organization need to fully swap out a contact center platform, let’s find ways first to integrate technology to better utilize what you have (of course there are those of you who need a ground up new system—if you are still using a premise based contact center, it’s TIME!).
We will focus on:
- Identification
- Let people know who you are when you reach out.
- No more texts from 46253.
- Clients are more likely to respond when they know who is calling or texting.
- Engaging clients to click a link requires them to know who you are.
- Chatbot
- Ways to integrate content for an easy to engage digital chatbot.
- Offer information directly to consumers via questions in the corner of your website.
- Link supply chain or delivery via common API (where is my package?).
- Deflect calls to your expensive agents to allow client self-service.
- This is how many clients want to engage anyway, no queues, no stupid questions, just answers.
- Agent Assist A/I
- Guide agents through conversations.
- Step-by-step workflows.
- Agent Scripting
- Use logic with exact phrases.
- Reduce training time for new hires.
- Build standard operating procedures.
- Create interactive knowledge base.
- Improve handle times.
- Enable client self-help.
- Decide which product to buy.
- Faster mean time to resolution.
- Save money by achieving ROI faster.
- No-Code deployments.
- Integrate with common CRM.
- Tons of use cases across all workflows and organizations
- Guide agents through conversations.
- Peer to Peer Video
- Personalize your communications with clients.
- Engage customers one to one with video directly off a website.
- Any use case for a direct consultation
- Mortgage Broker
- Tax Preparer
- Personal Shopper
- Security Analyst
- Real Estate Broker
- Legal Consultation
- Health Care Discussion/Evaluation
- Senior/assisted living consultation
- Any other use case for face-to-face interaction
- No code, no downloads, use common tools.
Let’s find ways to use new technology and quick approaches to optimize our client interactions, meet them where they want to be met and engage how THEY want to be engaged. Let’s do more with less, arm our coworkers and clients with the answers they need and delight them, not disappoint them.
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