The growth of digital technology has triggered a change in our communication preferences. In the contact centre operation, easily accessible new technology is opening doors to incredible opportunities in everything from customer experience to agent productivity.
The pandemic has accelerated that change. Businesses are facing huge increases in call volumes. No longer is dialling a free 0800 line the only way a customer can reach out—they’re emailing, using webchat, writing reviews, posting on Facebook and tweeting. Whereas previously customers were limited in the ways they could engage with your company, now they have a vast array of choice. This presents both opportunity and challenges for organisations.
It is challenging to be able to keep up with the numerous channels over which customers can communicate with your business. All the while, different tools with different metrics make it virtually impossible to provide any sort of consistent reporting or management across the different groups to measure performances. As if all of that wasn’t enough, customers are forever moving to new technologies for their communications. Without the right tools to manage customer communications across all current channels, and new channels that are sure to show up in the future, your organisation will not be able to survive.
Such organisations are being forced to reevaluate their customer communication strategy and how they can take advantage of technology to expand their engagement option.
Customer experience and expectations
Customer expectations are rising, the world is going digital. 96% of customers want their issues resolved quickly on the channel of their choice. 49% of customers have switched to another business in the past year as a result of poor customer service. 89% of consumers have switched to doing business with a competitor following a poor customer experience.
In today’s highly competitive environment, every client interaction matters. Therefore, it’s important to recognise that the rules for customer interaction have changed and continue to evolve.
Customers choose to connect and communicate with brands as they would normally connect with friends and families. And they want instant information, quick response, and expect a personalised experience. Customers will alter the channels they use to interact with customer service teams based on the time of day, the urgency, the way they work and play and of course, their emotions and moods. They want that convenience and expect the interaction with your brand to be effortless – and they want it 24/7.
How are you serving your customers today? What’s your CX strategy going forward?
How can you take advantage of this shift to not only survive but as an opportunity to turn your contact centre into a profit centre?
Organisations that are already taking the advance of contact centre as a service (CCaaS) enable remote working for their agents and enable them to increase their productivity by responding to messages coming from other popular channels like WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Apple Business Chat, Twitter and more. New channels are added to the capability as technology rapidly evolves.
Innovative technology in the contact centre is one of the main things changing the way people communicate today. Being forward-thinking about your entire communications strategy with customers is key.
Help reduce TCO and win the digital race
Forbes quoted that 84% of companies that strive to improve their customer experience report an increase in revenue. One of the best ways to do this is to upgrade your contact centre to a market-leading platform offering multi-channel customer engagement capabilities.
Companies that recognise the importance of delivering customer experience keep their contact centre strategy at the core of digital transformation. You need to shift interactions from voice to digital to keep up with the increase while also keeping costs low. You can intercept calls before customers even reach an agent, thanks to digital IVR options that transfer customers to a digital channel for faster resolution.
Goodbye, analogue
The world is going digital, and there’s no escaping it. In the old world of customer service, the company was in control of the communication channels. Now, the customer holds the power, through the channels they choose to utilise.
Apple, Facebook, and Google are doubling down on enabling customer-to-business messaging. Google’s recently launched Business Messages enables mobile users to initiate messaging conversations with companies directly from Google Search and Maps instead of calling them. It also allows customers to message a business directly from a Google search result or their Google Maps listing.
A Facebook-commissioned Nielsen study of global Facebook data found that 1 billion people use Messenger each month. The same study also found that 56% of those surveyed would rather message than call customer service. Every good customer advocate knows you need to meet your customers where they are.
RingCentral Engage Messaging helps you do just that. Now retail customers can directly send messages to a shop, instead of waiting on hold to the customer service branch. This means customers can directly engage agents to get what they need, for example to pick items from the shelves at their convenience. Customers like asynchronous messaging because it allows them to start, pause, and resume conversations when and where it’s convenient for them.
This is also good news for your agents: it provides them with aggregated message context and history, so they can deliver more personalised service to each customer. Instead of switching between different channels and feeling overwhelmed by incoming messages, agents can handle all enquiries from a single dashboard. This makes it easier to improve support operations, create a single customer identity across channels, and deliver a more personalised experience.
When it comes to your peers, they’re already seeing the benefits: RingCentral Engage provides 32% shorter response time, 18% higher productivity and up to 92% first contact resolution. Empower your staff to deliver the personalised experience customers expect to increase your customer loyalty. Explore the powerful link between engaged employees and happy customers.
Stay tuned: In my next blog post, I’ll explore the power of AI, self-service and smart routing to enhance your customer digital experience and the link to your bottom line.
Originally published Aug 26, 2020, updated Jan 16, 2023
