Today, call centres and customer service agents face a paradox. On one hand, there has never been more technology and tools at their disposal, on the other, with so many tools available, it is hard to know which to use and how to effectively utilise technology to create an effortless customer experience.
For
most customers, successful interaction depends less on the agent going “above
and beyond” the expected level of service, and more on the level of effort the
customer has to exert in order to receive the desired outcome. This means the
best contact centres solutions are not necessarily those that delight their
customers; but rather, those that use technology to create an effortless
customer journey.
So how do we create this effortless
experience?
Here
are three ways to create effortless customer service that will improve customer
experience and generate loyalty and revenue for your business.
1. Integrate your Customer Relationship Management platform (CRM) with your contact centre to create a more personalised experience
Integrating
your CRM with your cloud contact centre solution can transform CRM technology
from a passive information collection program, into a powerful tool for
creating a personalised customer experience. By collating customer information
across various touch points, an effective CRM integration can allow your
contact centre to track your customer’s journey throughout the purchase and
post-purchase process, and monitor the interactions they encounter along the
way. This is crucial information for creating an effortless customer service
experience, allowing your agents to engineer service experiences to be as
low-involvement as possible. It is also possible to understand exactly how
customers interact with your business, and how to reach them on their terms through
multichannel communications.
2. Connect with your customers using
multi-channel communication.
The
best thing a call centre can do to improve their customer service experience is
make the act of initiating contact as effortless as possible by providing multi-channel
communication, and allowing the customer to communicate on their terms, in
their own time. It’s about giving the customer the power to manage their
experience and level of engagement.
The
most successful call centres will go beyond making it easy for customers to
initiate contact using their preferred channel, by allowing customers to select
the channel that best suits them. For example, choosing web chat to communicate
a simple, quick query or issue and resolving the issue instantly, or calling
agents for more complex issues that requires a deeper level of engagement.
3. Using Computer Telephony
Integration (CTI) software to minimise frustration
Nothing
sabotages an effortless customer experience faster than having to repeat information
multiple times to different agents, or even the same agent, during a service
interaction. It’s frustrating, time consuming, and can destroy any good work
put in by a service agent in seconds, as soon as they’re passed onto a different
channel. It’s a common problem in customer service – and one easily avoided!
CTI
empowers agents to proactively manage the perceived level of effort a customer
feels during a service experience. No more time wasted repeating details that
are easy for your company to record and use, no more meaningless switching of
channels to finally reach issue resolution. Instead, agents can simply engineer
the experience by opening with an acknowledgment of your customer’s issue, then
jump straight into a positive resolution.
Check out ipSCAPE’s cloud contact centre solution here and talk to one of our team members to find out how you can improve your customer journey.