In the current on-again, off-again lockdown environment, the ways in which customers interact with businesses is changing.

Face-to-face transactions are becoming online encounters while deliveries are favoured over in-store pick-ups.

As a result, growing numbers of businesses are reassessing the capabilities of their contact centres. In the past, many contact centres have offered little more than the ability to answer incoming phone calls.

This is now changing!

• Customers are demanding the ability to interact with businesses using the channel of their choice, including email, SMS, and social media platforms such as Facebook Messenger, Twitter and WhatsApp. Another option is web chat sessions where customers interact with agents via the business’s website.
• It’s interesting to note that, among the younger demographic, voice calls have actually become the channel of last resort. Dialling in to a contact centre to then spend extended periods on hold is simply no longer tolerated.

Gaining a single view of the customer
Once multiple communication channels are in use within a contact centre, the challenge becomes obtaining a single view of all interactions. Agents need to know that an exchange which began as a text message then shifted to email before being completed as a voice call.

Savvy businesses are implementing an integrated platform that can manage all communication channels and create an accurate, consolidated view of each customer. Increasingly delivered as a web-based service, such a platform can revolutionise the way in which a contact centre operates and the quality of service it can deliver.

Voice is not dead
Despite declining in popularity as a communication channel, voice calls still have an important role to play in contact centres. And, thanks to advances in technology, the experience for customers choosing voice can be significantly improved.

Interestingly, analytics can be put to work to analyse these calls. Tools can identify key talking points or monitor the sentiment of a caller and determine whether they are happy or angry during a call.

Taking a staged deployment strategy
Businesses keen to take advantage of the benefits delivered by an integrated contact centre platform should realise such capabilities can be introduced over time rather than requiring a ‘big bang’ deployment.

By taking a staged, cloud-based approach to deployment, a business can increase its contact centre capabilities over time without requiring a large up-front investment. Agent productivity will grow, and customer satisfaction rise. Consider what benefits your business could enjoy by adopting this strategy.

 

Would you like to explore how you can enable your customers to interact with your business via their ‘channel of choice’?

Do you need a more modern, flexible contact centre platform that enables your team to work from anywhere, whether at home, mobile or in the office?

Would you like to discuss the opportunities to improve customer experience in your business, and the solutions are are currently available?

Let’s Talk.

Peak Insight is an award-winning Cisco Collaboration, Contact Centre and Connectivity provider.

We are a safe pair of hands that will take the time to understand your business, working with you to deliver extraordinary business outcomes through our project services, managed services, vendor products and software add-ons.

We take a consulting-led and adoption-driven approach, with in-house software development capabilities to maximise the value of your investment.

Interested to learn more? Let’s talk – schedule a call with our team, or call 1300 026 033 (option 1).