English
Steve Bederman:
We hear a lot about customer experience these days, but the ideal of CX has to be underlined with the ability to do it. How do I communicate with the people I need to reach (customers, prospects etc.)?
At NobelBiz we`ve taken that vision that I had and implemented it with the development of what we call the OMNI+ solution. It allows contact centers (or any business for that matter) to communicate on any level, at any time, in a comfortable fashion.
And what does that mean? It really means that you have different ways to communicate. Some might be more comfortable communicating on Facebook, some might be comfortable doing email. Others may like to go to a website, click and get in touch with a representative immediately.
Steve Bederman was invited on the Customer Support Leaders Podcast: Fireside with Steve Bederman, moderated by Charlotte Ward.
The main question of the discussion was how can a contact center make use of technology to reach people at their comfort level.
Listen to the full episode here:
Also, oftentimes, people want to remain anonymous, like for example in the Accounts Receivable or the Debt Collection Industry where it is a bit uncomfortable to talk about this bill you owe, but you are ready to pay or at least negotiate a settlement.
So how do you do that without having to be confrontational or talk directly with somebody? Well, you can do it using other channels.
And all of these channels are out there, but individually. But if I am reaching a wide range of customers, I need to be able to give them the full experience: If you want to talk to me through Facebook, I can do that, or WhatsApp, I can do that and so on.
Charlotte Ward:
So, I think it is fair to say that probably most people listening to this podcast would be familiar with the phrase omnichannel as an approach to providing support.
But you used something right at the start there, which was OMNI+, which I would like you to give more context to.
Also, going back to what you said at the beginning: it is all about a level of comfort with the customers, isn’t it? That’s what we imagine when we think about omnichannel: it being some kind of convenience for customers.
They maximize the opportunity to contact us. But there is comfort as well, isn’t it?
Steve:
Well, regarding the comfort, if you`re really interested and seriously endeavored to embrace and provide a true customer experience, you first need to be able to communicate with them the way customers like to communicate.
Why not set that consumer or customer at ease? And to do that, going back to my earlier point, you want to give them their way of having comfort. You need to be able to offer that flexibility…
How many times have you called a very large company on the internet, for whatever reason, and there is nobody to talk to? Or the only way there is to talk to them is by email and you cross your fingers that in the next week you will hear from them…
A company wants to limit the use of people, the drama that goes with all the orders, and they want not to refund money when they don`t have to.
The alternative to that is to give people the comfort of doing it in their own way…
You have had two types of channel discussions in the last decade. One is multichannel and one is omnichannel. Multichannel is the ability to use different channels as a business. But an omni experience is a wrapper of all of those different communication media, but retaining all of that client information in a single repository.
So, if I am using a multichannel environment I`ve got different screens coming up. An agent will have a screen that offers chat, a screen where he can do email, another one that offers video connection and so on.
But an omni experience embraces all of those so that I can gather and communicate information on the same screen and the same client experience. I can look into customer information, I can communicate via voice or video, and then just send an email or a chat message with just a piece of information.
And all of that can be drawn back to the customer record. It won’t really matter how I talk to you or communicate, it is all centralized in terms of the data. And that is what I call the Plus side.
It’s great, I’ve communicated to you. But if I haven’t gathered and remarked on the experience, documented and archived it, then the next time you call, we`re going to start at square one again. So, it is my responsibility to add a plus and say: Here, I am going to bring all the messaging, all of the media back into a single, easy to use approach.
Interested to find out more about Steve`s approach to omnichannel? Listen to the whole interview at the top of the page.
