Whether you are looking for an omnichannel platform or already have one in place, the objective remains the same: boost your Customer Experience (CX). Other advantages include time-savings, cost-savings, greater efficiency, and greater Agent and Customer satisfaction.
But multi-channel options can create challenges for existing digital frameworks, necessitating a CX transformation that facilitates better customer service and more effective, butter supported agents.
Consequences of pandemic to the CX Environment and Omnichannel Platform shift
In the 2022 State of Contact Center Knowledge survey, conducted for knowledge platform specialist eGain by Benchmark Portal, the consequences of the pandemic continue to reverberate throughout the CX environment.
The study found that remote or hybrid work is still very prevalent even as the pandemic becomes endemic… and contact centers require robust knowledge-based guidance to respond. Also noted, 63% of those surveyed believe customer inquiries are more complex than in the past and 64% of those agents do not believe they have knowledge guidance.
Many organizations know they have a problem, but aren’t sure how to facilitate a CX Transformation that drives customer and agent satisfaction.
Reality of Customer Experience Transformation with Omnichannel Platform
The reality is that Customer Experience Transformation is quite achievable by harnessing the five “I”s:
- Investigation
- Information
- Integration
- Implementation
- Inspiration
1. Investigation
The pandemic accelerated the migration of customer interactions to multiple channels including voice, mobile, chat, text, social and online. A study by MIT Sloan Management Review found that 66% of customers surveyed used three or more channels to engage with their companies.
Therefore, it’s critical that you assess (or investigate) your organization’s current systems to determine what is working well—and more importantly, what is not—in terms of servicing Customers and understanding Agent challenges. Key indicators of issues might include unnecessarily long wait times, misrouted calls, Customers repeating themselves multiple times to multiple Agents, Agents switching between multiple programs, inefficiencies, etc.
Try to understand when your customers interact, regardless of channel, the types of questions or services asked, if and when the interaction failed and/or when they migrated to another channel for service.
Your transformation map should answer questions about why you’re transforming your process.
Is it to drive operational effectiveness and/or create an enhanced customer experience that differentiates your company? Goals and vision must be aligned as driving effectiveness and cost savings could have negative impacts on experience resulting in negative implications for revenue.
2. Information
Every investigation produces information about the disconnects that are preventing or inhibiting quality service. Are you supporting siloed services? How many communication channels are you using and are they all working cohesively? Do you see issues that limit the ability to capture customer information quickly? Are you using AI to drive intelligent knowledge bases?
Good information equals deeper insights and the chance to develop more relevant and effective recommendations across all communication channels. Many organizations are surprised to find that some of the adjustments to omnichannel platform services are easily implemented on their own.
Still others, particularly those that cross many channels, are better completed with help from a technical consultant with highly specialized knowledge about technology AND your service model, which leads to the next I in the customer experience transformation: Integration.
3. Integration
Forrester Consulting Thought Leadership Paper found that 95% of companies across the globe face challenges in the contact center with people, process and technology, which includes lack of integration between applications, outdated/unstable technology, too many applications or data sources.
In the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) report last year titled The Post-Pandemic Agent Experience, What’s Changed and What Needs to Change?, the authors noted that just 17% of those surveyed said their contact center agents were able to switch seamlessly among various channels without needing to repopulate customers’ information in each new channel. Integration of systems and applications is a problem for many.
As the report documents, “The use of multiple, disconnected channels slows response times, creates confusion, and drives up the cost to serve often-frustrated customers. And, of course, that creates stressed and unhappy agents.” Further the reports states that as of early 2022, 68% of contact centers agents struggle with navigating multiple screens and interfaces due to technological shortcomings and a lack of training on new tech and processes. As many systems do not speak to one another, agents must reenter the same information multiple times across systems.
An essential step to effective CX and AX experiences is unifying businesses and centralizing data. The best way to unify a business is by migrating customer interactions from voice, mobile, chat, text, social and online to a robust digital strategy, which allows for a seamless experience, regardless of the channel through which a customer chooses to engage with your organization.
4. Implementation
Achieving a seamless CX digital transformation requires good planning to assure a seamless transition for Agents—regardless of which channel Customers choose to engage.
A Transformation Roadmap, developed internally or with help from your consultant, should prioritize recommendations and tangible activities to facilitate an orderly execution plan. The Roadmap should identify quick hit recommendations for immediate implementation, many of which you can deploy independently.
For call center executive management, this is the time to pull the “before” report that will contrast how clever you were to have implemented a digital transformation solution. Expect the “after” report to show greater Customer and Agent retention, shorter call wait times, shorter call work times, less repeat Customer calls related to the same issue, greater Customer sentiment, greater Customer loyalty and more,
From this point on, the Customer/Agent Experience should undergo a positive transformation that can be measured by increased mutual satisfaction, quicker time to resolve concerns, seamless experience across platforms, cost-savings, time-efficiency and more.
5. Inspiration
Once a CX Transformation Solution is implemented or rolled out to a contact center, managers should see an improvement in both Agents and Customer satisfaction. It is a measurable metric that defines the success of your Customer and Agent Experience.
For Agents, CX Transformation Solutions offer an ease-of-use not experienced previously with legacy systems—it effectively ‘inspires’ positive results. With the transformation, Agents enjoy a consolidated view of their Customers’ interactions across all channels. The data can be accessed via one system instead of many, regardless if Customer engagement originates from voice, mobile, chat, text, social or online. Agents are able to respond more quickly and effectively to customers and customers have an equally positive experience about your business to share.
Customers enjoy a personalized interaction with one Agent instead of many, which means they do not have to repeat themselves. There is less time and effort expended with Customer/Agent interactions, which equates to a “short and sweet” interchange of information, optimizing the Customer Experience.
Did you know that with a 5% increase in Customer retention, the increase in profits can range between 25% and 95%? Omnichannel platform is a must.
Those were the recent findings of Genesys Blog. Based on PWC’s research, 73% of customers agree that Customer Experience helps to drive their buying decision and according to Forbes, there is an 84% increase in revenue for businesses that focus on improving Customer Experience.
Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft once said: “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” Harness the five “I”s of your CX Transformation to fix inefficiencies in your contact center and facilitate next-level improvements in your data management practices (think AI!).
In its AI-Infused Contact Centers Optimize Customer Experience report, Forrester Consulting found that 64% percent of respondents said their firms are planning to increase their investments in AI for their contact centers over the next year to better evaluate data. In the study, 87% of respondents believe that harnessing this data for insights would enable their companies to deliver timely and contextually relevant customer experiences, identify new revenue streams, or dynamically respond to market changes.
Word of warning: AI implementation is not easy.
According to Forrester, 89% of respondents experience challenges with implementing AI in the contact center for reasons that range from lack of internal resources to insufficient expertise. “To overcome AI implementation challenges, companies must seek more training, expertise, and support when implementing AI. The right partner can do most of the heavy lifting.
DecisivEdge can help you on your Customer Experience Transformation journey. We integrate disparate systems—regardless of platform, implement intelligent routing and messaging, and leverage AI and Natural Language Processing into your workflows. We help partners like Five9 and our respective clients explore opportunities to fully optimize best-in-class technology solutions, in conjunction with analytics and data-driven operational strategies, and then work hands-on with implementation to provide real-life end-to-end solutions.
We are knowledge leaders with deep industry experience. Our clients benefit from our unique ideas, knowledge of industry best practices and our ability to develop creative solutions to overcome their highest priority business and technology challenges. Our collaborative approach is designed to really understand our clients’ business objectives, and then deploy a seasoned solution delivery team to get the job done right the first time.