Three challenges contact centres should have overcome by now

Unlike the uncertainty surrounding Brexit negotiations, the last ten years’ advances in technology (and especially AI) has helped many leading brands turn their contact centres into profit centres by improving first contact resolution, decreasing agent burnout and making their customers happy.

Technology has also changed customer expectations and customer experience can no longer be sacrificed for the convenience of the brand. Customer service is an essential part of contact centres, and with uncertain times upon us, delivering exceptional customer experience to customers via their channel of choice might have some contact centres feeling like they don’t have the right weapons to win the battle of delivering increased customer satisfaction whilst also reducing their cost-per-serve ratio.

But, there is hope yet for those who choose their arms wisely…

Bite the bullet with efficiency

Unpredictable call spikes cause frustrated customers and weary agents, resulting in lost revenue. Self-service options like Visual IVR, FAQ Search and Virtual Agent chatbots help to optimise agent contact, coping with spikes in enquiries and assisting with rapid contact resolution in the event that a query is escalated to an agent.

Plan of attack to retain and attract

Teams burning out quickly and high agent attrition costs time and money. Gamification programs promote healthy culture; performance data improves development and retention. Dashboards reporting on agent productivity will assist contact centre managers to identify staff needing more encouragement as well as identifying those to reward.

‘Omni-channelling’ successfully with Customer Experiences

Being there for customers when they reach out via chat, email or social media is challenging when the best skilled agents or a full customer history is not be available. Using APIs and CRM integrations, real-time data can be unified in one place across channels, enabling a 360 degree view of the customer, regardless of which channel they choose to interact through.

These quick reads provide some valuable insight to taking small steps to prepare for the ever-changing customer experience landscape and how it can create winning results in the contact centre.