Today’s customers are connected customers, they expect personalized, seamless, omnichannel engagement and they are willing to pay a premium for it. Building an ecology of CX excellence takes some effort but you’ll be glad you put the work in.
Let’s build a picture of what this environment will look like by first discussing some CX issues that frustrate rather than delight our customers.
Pet peeves
Blowing in the wind
‘Your call is important to us, please hold’. Everyone hates this type of message. Even worse is not getting through in the first place. As many as one in every fifteen calls fail to connect. This is a scary statistic.
At Spearline, our Voice Assure suite of contact center testing, monitoring, and contact center number testing tools ensure you never have to worry about call connections or call quality. So that’s one CX headache taken care of.
Bad robot
Poorly devised and implemented automated telephony services account for 56% of CX frustrations. It is simply not ok anymore to offer the traditional ‘press 1 for billing’ type menus. Strong CX demands personalized customer engagements that accurately reflect their journey and provide a clear means to issue resolution.
Social media silos
It is all too easy to treat a social media query as a side quest. A statista poll concluded that 59% of customers have a better experience with brands that respond to customer service questions or complaints on social media. So don’t silo off your social media queries, treat them with the same impetus you would queries from your more traditional channels of communication.
The stairway to CX Heaven
Now that we know the potential landmines to sidestep, let’s get to the heart of the matter. Here are our top tips for contact center CX excellence in 2022.
Strip down your IVR
Just because your IVR has a swathe of impressive features doesn’t mean your customers want to interact with them all. Dig down into your IVR and select only the best and most useful features that leave your customers with the feeling that there’s was a personal, truly responsive customer engagement
Bulk up your audio
While modern contact center communications channels include email, chat windows, and social media, voice still reigns supreme. This is why we must pay particular attention to audio quality. Contact center testing and monitoring systems like those available at Spearline allow you to replicate your customers’ true experience with your service and remove any barriers to great CX.
Provide the human touch
75% of consumers still prefer to interact with a real human being. Good CX ratings are heavily dependent on high quality personal, empathetic, and readily responsive human interactions.
Use your Artificial Intelligence resources to unify customer engagement, not replace the human element of that engagement.
Offer service with a smile
Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have seen a 68% increase in the use of video chat as a consumer communication tool. If possible, try to incorporate video chat into your regular communication stream.
Again, monitoring is key. Take time to monitor and test the quality of your video. Record interactions, provide adequate training and feedback to your agents, and implement workflow management systems to ensure agents are not visibly multitasking during calls.
Update your access strategy
Since the start of the health crisis, customers’ use of Instagram to message businesses has increased by 75%. Facebook Messenger saw an increase of 20% in the same area. Keep abreast of the popular social media channels and train your agents in the best engagement strategies to make them work for you.
Get it right first time
A whopping 99% of customers will remain with a product or service when their problem is resolved on the first call.
Train you agents well. Empower them to do what’s needed to resolve issues as quickly as possible. The payoff is great; satisfied, loyal customers, and confident, successful agents.
CX marks the spot
Let’s not fool ourselves, Customers don’t really want to speak to us at all! Most customers try lots of other avenues to resolve their issue before they contact customer service. So when they do reach out, their expectations are high.
Finding that sweet spot between AI integration and genuine human engagement is at the heart of CX. It’s not easy but the rewards are great.
New to Spearline?
Spearline provides quality assurance tools for business communication services, allowing you to proactively manage your inbound and outbound voice, SMS and fax services. Our latest WebRTC products offer testing, monitoring and support for web-based communications.
We work globally across business sectors, supporting contact centers, conferencing services, and more to successfully connect with their customers and employees. For further information, or if you have any further questions please get in touch.
