In today’s digital age, businesses constantly strive to enhance customer service and engagement strategies. Contact centres are crucial in this endeavour, serving as the primary point of contact for customers seeking assistance or information.
Customers today are tired of encountering fragmented and impersonal customer service experiences. A Zendesk report revealed, “73% of customers want the ability to start a conversation on one channel and pick it up seamlessly in a different channel, without any data or context getting lost.” Omnichannel contact centre solutions promise to deliver frictionless experiences across different channels by creating a continuous customer journey.
Suppose you are assessing whether your organisation should implement an omnichannel solution. In that case, this blog will assist you in debunking the myths and understanding the realities of utilising omnichannel cloud contact centre technology.
What is omnichannel cloud contact centre software?
An omnichannel contact centre solution unifies multiple communication channels into a centralised platform, enabling customer service agents to manage customer enquiries across different touchpoints while maintaining a seamless experience.
Omnichannel contact centre software allows agents to switch between channels in the same interaction easily. For example, an agent may begin communicating with a customer through web chat but can quickly transfer this interaction to a phone call.
Omnichannel cloud contact centre software provides agents with information such as interaction history that enables continuity of the customer experience.
What are the myths and realities of using an omnichannel contact centre solution?
Whether your customers interact with your brand through web chat, social media applications or via phone, it is crucial to consider these myths and realities of omnichannel cloud contact centre solutions.
Myth 1: Using an omnichannel solution automatically removes data silos and creates seamless experiences across communication channels:
Suppose you currently use different applications to engage with customers, such as social media. In that case, you must be clear that the omnichannel contact centre solution you choose integrates with that application or has the necessary integration points. Be clear about which channels and applications you want to be able to engage with your customers through and for what purpose.
Are you using Instagram for content sharing and customer services? Or is it a marketing tool?
Are your customers on WhatsApp, and is this for sales or customer service?
Reality
To create seamless customer experiences, an organisation needs more than an Omnichannel Contact Centre solution – they also need proper planning, training and resourcing. Customer Think highlights, “Businesses have added new channels, such as chat, social media, or a mobile app, yet failed to provide staff or adequately resource these channels. In turn, customers become disgruntled and opt out of buying items because they couldn’t connect with anyone who could help them“.
A clear strategy around which tools you will use and for what purpose will help you adequately plan and manage resourcing around these applications.
Myth 2: Omnichannel and multichannel contact centre software are the same:
Reality
Multichannel contact centre solutions enable organisations to engage with customers through multiple channels including phones, email, webchat and SMS channels. However, these channels operate independently, without passing necessary information from one channel to the next.
Omnichannel contact centre solutions allow agents to seamlessly interact with customers across several touchpoints through a unified system, preserving context and history.
The critical difference lies in the level of integration and continuity between channels. Multichannel contact center software supports multiple channels but lacks synchronization and context. On the other hand, omnichannel contact center software provides a seamless and consistent customer experience by unifying interactions and data across all channels.
How do you know if you need an omnichannel contact centre solution or a multichannel contact centre solution?
To determine if you need multichannel or omnichannel contact centre software, consider the following:
- Customer Expectations – Do your customers use different channels? Are they likely to switch between channels within the same interaction?
- Resource Availability – Which channels can your organisation service? Do you have agents who are skilled at handling emails? Do they have the knowledge and information to respond instantly through live chat?
- Business Requirements – Do you have lots of customers that use social media? Does this need to be integrated with your contact centre solution, or can it be operated natively in the platform?
- Budget – Omnichannel contact centre software typically requires advanced integrations with higher costs. Evaluate your budget against the potential advantages of investing time and money into a more complex platform.
Myth 3: Leveraging an omnichannel solution will improve the rate at which customers are served:
Some organisations think the technology will immediately improve performance metrics. Omnichannel contact centre software provides agents with lots of customer interaction data and information, but this doesn’t make agents more efficient and productive.
Reality
Having all customer interaction data in the same omnichannel solution doesn’t immediately improve customer service metrics.
Agents still need the proper training to understand how customer information, including interaction history, can create better experiences and resolve service enquiries more efficiently.
For example, agents have access to purchase history, where more specific product-related questions can be asked to create a more personalised experience.
Myth 4: You need an Omni-channel Contact Centre solution to create seamless experiences:
Reality
Organisations can achieve omnichannel experience by integrating their multi-channel Contact Centre solution with CRM such as Salesforce. The CRM acts as the tool which holds the interaction history and tasks, and the contact centre solution brings powerful telephony and routing capabilities. You can also route emails through the multi-channel contact centre solution and sync with the CRM, which is the single source of truth.
Using an omnichannel contact centre platform provides deeper visibility across customer journeys compared to a multichannel solution:
Omnichannel contact centre software produces a holistic view of the customer journey, such as understanding which channels a customer used to engage with your brand and which channel was used at resolution.
Multichannel contact centre software can integrate with your CRM, which can be used to uncover the entire customer journey. Customer data, such as emails and social media messages, can be seen within individual profiles. Managers can access and analyse this information to make data-driven decisions, i.e., determining how to invest in the channels commonly used to engage with customers.
Omnichannel solutions are the only way to see interaction history when the conversation transitions across different channels:
A typical pain point customers encounter when they change from one communication channel to another is needing to repeat their enquiry. Omnichannel call centre software alleviates this pain point as the agent is equipped with previous interaction data, which reduces average handle time and improves customer satisfaction.
A CRM such as Salesforce, Zendesk, or ServiceNow can also help your agents see interaction history without needing an omnichannel contact centre solution. By bringing telephony features to these CRMs using a CTI, you can still arm agents with historical and relevant customer information to personalise the experience.
Before investing in omnichannel software, consider your organisation’s current contact centre technology setup and how your customers interact with your brand. Then, evaluate the myths and realities of omnichannel cloud contact centre software.
If you’d like to discover how ipSCAPE’s advanced cloud contact centre solution can help enrich your customer experiences across multiple channels, get in touch to find out how ipSCAPE’s award-winning software can help you maximise every sales opportunity and deliver seamless customer experiences.
ipSCAPE is a cloud communication technology solution that is feature-rich, scalable and has advanced integration capabilities. We help businesses connect with their customers through omnichannel communications, including Voice, Web Chat, Email, SMS, IVR, and other emerging channels.