Every Fortune 1000 company talks about delivering amazing customer and employee experiences. The simple truth is that this is much easier said than done.
It takes vision, focus, a willingness to experiment across process and technology, and ongoing execution to deliver truly human-centric results.
In today’s world of endless technology choices - not to mention customers’ desires to use different contact channels for different purposes - the contact center leader’s strategic challenge is to develop the vision and focus to create a differentiated experience for both customers and agents.
In this LinkedIn newsletter, Tales from the Frontline, we will share real situations from real organizations and our experience concerning real, practical solutions in contact center operations.
I founded Blue Orbit Consulting in 2014 after running staff organizations in contact centers and building consulting practices in customer service, process improvement, complex program management, and channel operations. My approach – and my firm’s approach – is fundamentally pragmatic, and our clients often achieve benefits in excess of 10x their investment. We develop and deliver world-class customer interactions for our clients, whether it is troubleshooting and optimizing what they already have in place or creating strategic transformations to deliver outstanding customer interactions every time.
Voice Isn’t Going Away.
One of the most common situations we have dealt with in 2022 is difficulties with voice channel service level.
Even though so many customer service processes have moved to electronic channels, voice in the contact center will likely never go away, especially for the savviest operators intent on meeting end-users where they are.
Given pressure on costs, the corporate desire to transfer operations to self-service, and the labor shortage in the market, many organizations have pushed to maintain voice service level with fewer agents and more self-service options. This makes sense, and we have worked with a number of clients to increase their accuracy in forecasting what it takes to deliver in this environment and how to maximize their chances of success.
No Matter What, CCaaS is Your Building Block.
Everything starts with your contact center platform.
Your core building block must provide the dynamic, on-demand capabilities expected by a fluid omni-channel world. Most importantly, your platform must allow you to:
- Let customers know wait times are long and offer options such as calling them back or interacting with an effective self-service menu.
- Overlay intelligence-driven speech analytics tools that can tell you quickly what is going on across your universe of voice and chat interactions.
- Support agents in serving those customers in whatever channel they choose to use through decision support and other tools that take the calories out of handling customer needs.
There has been an explosion of platforms and overlay applications to deliver these capabilities. Getting the right capabilities implemented effectively is core to your success and enables you to build from there.
As contact center leaders know all too well, there is a painful trade-off when it comes to your service model – you can prioritize answering speed so customers do not wait, or you can emphasize first contact resolution. However, the best world balances both.
Q: “I am struggling to hit my service level goals, and customers are waiting over 3 minutes and hanging up. I think I need more people. What else am I missing?”
This is a great question that we fielded from a client recently. With some quick research and partnering on an assessment, we concluded that yes, more labor was needed. That was only part of the story. What was also needed was to focus on getting calls answered and handled on the first attempt. No asking customers to call back or calling them back, and no transferring to other people. Just handling the call. And an amazing thing happened – call volumes started decreasing when calls were getting answered and handled. Wait times went down too. It turns out additional people were needed to really hit the service level goal, but not as many as our client had originally thought. Customer satisfaction improved even before the service level goal was hit. When we dug into customer feedback, customers were happier getting what they needed in a single call even if they had to wait a little longer.
As you consider your own experiences with your contact center platform, what are you struggling with? Whether it is basic, hard, or ridiculously complex, solutions are out there. Take a moment to share this newsletter with your colleagues who may be struggling with similar challenges. Blue Orbit Consulting guides you through methods that will transform your contact center’s operations into a world-class customer experience. Get in touch>>
______________
I founded Blue Orbit Consulting in 2014 after running staff organizations in contact centers and building consulting practices in customer service, process improvement, complex program management, and channel operations. My approach – and my firm’s approach – is fundamentally pragmatic, and our clients often achieve benefits in excess of 10x their investment. We develop and deliver world-class customer interactions for our clients, whether it is troubleshooting and optimizing what they already have in place or creating strategic transformations to deliver outstanding customer interactions every time.