A business cannot survive without customers. A Bloomberg Businessweek survey revealed that "delivering excellent customer service" has become the top strategic goal for businesses. A recent Customer Management IQ survey showed that 751 CEOs and leaders rated the importance of customer experience with the highest score of 5 points on a scale of 1-5. (See chart below).
Therefore, improving and enhancing the customer experience is essential. The key is to provide a positive and consistent experience. Accordingly, Omnichannel Contact Center is a solution that helps consolidate all your communication channels into a single, easy-to-use interface.
So how can you effectively implement an Omnichannel Contact Center and enhance the customer experience?
1. Understand the customer journey
Customers rarely follow the support journey you have mapped out. They may turn to self-service channels, interactive messaging, or send SMS before actually interacting with your support team.
That's why the more you understand your customers' overall journey and the channels they frequently engage with, the more effective your omnichannel approach will be. Mapping the customer experience journey ensures that you don't miss any opportunities to interact with your customers at any stage. This process also helps business leaders gain deep insights into the real issues, needs, and desires of their customers.
How can you learn about your customers and their journey? The following toolkit (free download) can help you determine: CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAPPING TOOLKIT
2. Personalize the customer experience
After gaining a comprehensive understanding of their customer journey, businesses need to personalize each customer's experience. This can be considered the core of the Omnichannel approach. From the customer's perspective, when a business remembers them and even the smallest personal details with each interaction, customers will be pleasantly surprised and satisfied with your customer service. Microsoft's research has shown that 72% people expect your customer service team to know who they are, what they have purchased, and understand their past interactions.
A Contact Center platform that has all customer information organized efficiently across all channels will certainly increase agent productivity and make it easier for customers to return.
Personalizing the customer experience can be considered the core of the Omnichannel Contact Center approach (illustrative image).
3. Listen to feedback and monitor changes in customer preferences
If a business only pours money into advertising and marketing to promote its products, but does not know whether those products meet the needs of users, this is extremely wasteful and ineffective for the business.
Instead, listen to customer feedback on various channels. For example, if customers are frustrated with the limitations of an automated chatbot, provide them with a way to contact a live agent.
In addition, it is necessary to continuously monitor and identify customer preferences, as they will want different products at different times and even in different spaces.
4. Collect, store, and use data effectively
The above methods only stop data collection, but do not mention how to use it effectively. All data that is fully and thoroughly compiled and stored together on a CRM management system will be the key to improving the customer experience.
The Omnichannel Contact Center will be most effective when agents have a clear understanding of all customer interaction data.
The minimum customer data required is the content of previous conversations that customers have interacted with across channels. However, you should expand the data further, for example:
- The goods and items in the shopping cart on the website
- Frequently visited websites
- How long has your website been up?
- Websites you've viewed before
- Upcoming commemorative days
- …
5. Creating a balance between people and technology
Many people may think that using high technology will enhance the customer experience. This is not entirely true. Whether using technology or people, the ultimate goal is still to create an emotional connection with customers in a seamless and rapid manner. Technology may be fast, but it does not necessarily evoke emotions in customers. Conversely, people can evoke emotions in customers, but they are not as fast as technology.
Therefore, businesses need to strike a balance between people and technology in Omnichannel. Omnichannel Contact Centers are powered by some of the best customer support technologies available. However, the quality of support still depends on human interaction.
One thing is certain: no matter how advanced the technology is or how diverse the data is, handling unexpected issues will always be beyond the capabilities of technology. Therefore, striking a balance between people and technology is one of the five strategies for improving customer experience in an Omnichannel Contact Center.
Technology advances, but without a balance between people, Omnichannel in Contact Centers will not be highly effective.
Here are a few ways to improve the customer experience in an Omnichannel Contact Center. If your business is looking to develop an Omnichannel Contact Center but doesn't know where to start, please contact:
▪️ Hotline: 1900 1739
▪️ Email: contact@bell24vietnam.vn
