The moment a user faces any problem with a product or service, the first thought that crosses the mind is to call the contact center. Dialing the number does not connect the customer directly with the agent, they must follow several steps before finally getting to hear their voice. By the time a customer reaches the agent, they are tired of following the mechanized steps and also have to repeat themselves to the agent. This leads to a poor customer experience (CX), which makes the entire process of problem resolution, unpleasant.

The CX industry has been working hard on changing this bad user experience into something proactive, and designed to keep the customer happy. Most importantly, it is working to remove the need to connect with the Contact Center.. We have discussed this topic in our blog here where Yatindra looks at a holistic approach to CX beyond the traditional Contact Center (CC). In this blog we are going to stay within the contact center boundaries.

With any structural change comes moderate to heavy investments in terms of money or human resources. Large organizations who have deployed heavy capital in all departments and have systems up and running, might not be comfortable to adopt a change. The reason behind this is simple, they become accustomed to their legacy systems and any change would mean entering into unknown territory laden with new challenges.

Startups on the other hand have a clean slate and are ready to invest more research and capital to adopt emerging technologies, providing them with a competitive edge. Therefore, change for a large organization might be more challenging than their startup counterpart.

We understood this dilemma of maintaining stability while ensuring a change in CX that was sweeping the market. We came up with a readymade roadmap that would move your static legacy architecture to a dynamic and intelligent CX-based architecture. We call this the ‘road to FluidCC’. Like all things modern, it is a flexible roadmap and can be adapted to your specific requirements.

HERE ARE THE KEY STEPS

LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS

Only an efficient listener can be an effective problem solver. Unless one listens clearly chances are they might be solving the wrong problem. The same is valid for customer experience. So, the first step is to start listening to your customers. Conventional methods such as surveys, feedback forms, workshops etc., or contemporary measurement tools that simulate customer-agent experience and report back on the efficacy can be used to listen to the customer. These actions do not require major changes in the existing platforms and provide the most valuable data to move ahead in the journey of crafting a good CX.

LEARN ABOUT YOUR CUSTOMERS’ EXPERIENCE

In the conventional process of connecting with the contact center, the steps are fashioned in a way that do not allow customers a chance to freely express themselves. Bound by the work script, the agents follow a set of questions making minimal or no effort to go beyond and know about the customer’s experience or the customer journey. The listening tools, however, give a base benchmark. They do not get to the customer’s mind. The next task then would be to understand the implicit and explicit expectations that your customers have from you. Again, these could be done using face-to-face sessions. A more practical approach would be to use AI to dive through the various interactions, grasp patterns, and accentuate the key positive and negative customer experiences.

ADOPT OR ADAPT A MODERN PLATFORM

Being accustomed to a certain system not only makes us comfortable but also gets work done faster. If we take the case of contact center platforms, they are like a double-edged sword. They can bring fruitful results if used wisely or hold you back from succeeding if not recalibrated at the right time. Legacy platforms might ensure your survival for some time, but will not help you to thrive in a competitive environment. Therefore, it becomes imperative that you invest in the platform that gives you the balance between speed, value, and flexibility in real terms. Your change begins here and the insights you gain in the first step are going to help you sail this stage.

EVOLVE YOUR CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

It is the duty of the enterprise to present the customers with innovative solutions to make their experience delightful. Providing customers with a basic contact center facility is a necessity. What enterprises should focus on is providing augmented services, thereby making the customer experience even better. With extensive digital customer interaction, new areas to serve the customers and achieve a competitive edge have arrived. Once you have the platform of choice, you can start pulling various levers of customer experience using experience virtualization, experience amplification, modern personalized engagements, and customer journey engineering tools.

Providing customers with a basic contact center facility is a necessity; what enterprises should focus on is providing augmented services so as to pleasantly surprise the customer and make their experience even better

KEEP EXPLORING

Change is the only constant. If enterprises believe that one-time exploration and investment would suffice and provide them with long-term benefits, then they are riding the wrong wagon. The technology landscape has changed significantly and there is a remarkable democratization of high-end capabilities on cloud and AI. The internet has further moved on from being a reservoir of static content to a carrier of rich virtual experiences across multiple devices– from hyper-secure kiosks, to private and hyper-personalized virtual assistants. In such an environment it becomes necessary to evolve with the requirement and their solutions.

The Right Approach to Customer Experience Superiority

There are many tools and solutions available in the market that are sold under the umbrella term ‘Customer Experience’. But enterprises must proceed with caution when investing in such tools. Chances are the tool you invest in might not give you the required Happy Path you want to give your Customers. Customer Experience is not just about collection of pre-built technologies but the right set of actionable synergic tech and processes that can accelerate your journey to Customer Experience Superiority. So, take a well-informed choice and begin the journey of modernizing your contact center. We are here to help you at FluidCC@hcl.com