A good customer experience entails enhancing all consumer interactions with a brand or firm. This customer experience has to be one-of-a-kind, and it has to mirror the values you want to convey to your customers and prospects.
In 2020, digital transformations have progressed dramatically. Companies have had to adopt remote work swiftly and enhance their usage of digital platforms. This circumstance may have sped up the use of digital technologies by five years. In order to prepare for the future, what is the role of customer experience in the business world? And what technologies and trends should contact centers embrace now?
Customer Experience: Physical encounters are being replaced by full digital journeys
This transition has been expedited by the epidemic. Customers are buying more online since the start of the health crisis, according to 49% of customers. Businesses must provide alternatives to the physical experience.
Click and collect, which has previously been implemented by the market’s big players, is now being embraced by all enterprises. Store visits are also more planned and focused on the consumer experience, which is generally handled by the salesperson. In this regard, digital plays an important role in supplementing the in-store help provided by these salespeople. Digital engagements are expected to expand by 40% in 2021 and companies must embrace the channels that their consumers value, as well as the tools to successfully manage them, in order to prepare for this.
For Businesses, flexibility isn’t an option any longer
A good customer experience necessitates contact center flexibility. To ensure company continuity in early 2020, organizations have to immediately embrace remote working in an agile manner. Depending on the company’s level of digital maturity, this move has been more or less smooth. Companies that rely mostly on the cloud have been able to make this move swiftly, but those with on-premises solutions have experienced major challenges, owing to the requirement for actual gear.
In 2021, the ability to remain available to consumers and match their expectations will be critical, and differentiation will be possible. This is why businesses should create a flexible organization that can react to changes fast. This entails utilizing open technology to adapt to limits and incorporate future advancements.
The use of asynchronous communications is increasing
This year, the increase of asynchronous contacts for customer service continues. Daily talks between customers and companies climbed by 40% on social media and mainly Facebook Messenger and Instagram.
The health crisis, which boosted demand in various areas including tourism and services (telecoms, insurance, and banking), also aided the development of asynchronous messaging. This issue has underlined the benefits of this means of communication: customers can contact businesses more readily, and businesses can run their operations more flexibly than they could by phone. Fast asynchronous channels, such as live-chat, are progressively replacing synchronous channels to match immediacy requirements. It will be critical in 2021 for contact centers to equip themselves with the necessary technologies and tools to manage these demands and reply in a timely way.
The telephone client experience is still improving
Customers are increasingly appreciating digital channels, which may be tailored to a variety of conditions. The telephone, on the other hand, continues to be a widely utilized and indispensable communication tool. The telephone has had its procedures enhanced owing to digital, while being a source of annoyance, particularly because of the waiting time.
Call deflection, as an example, allows calls to be routed to digital channels when it is appropriate for the client and the business. It can be suggested prior to the call, during the call’s wait period, or during the call itself. It gives the consumer the option of talking on the phone when necessary and using digital when it is more suited.
This change of channel might be given to finish a payment or access basic information (order tracking, rate information, etc.) more quickly and without waiting time via digital channels. Call volumes may be reduced and replies may be provided much more quickly thanks to automation and digital technologies. Agents can give greater service since they are not bound by resolution time objectives. By 2021, the call deflection strategy will be more frequently used to aid the shift from phone to digital interactions.
The right balance between human efforts and automation
For some years, artificial intelligence has been a growing trend. We’ve progressed to the point where the uses are getting more relevant and are no longer harming the user experience. On the one hand, businesses have been steadily identifying the best uses for chatbots. They’ve increased the number of partnerships between chatbots and agents, allowing the latter to devote more time to higher-value inquiries. Customers, on the other hand, have become acclimated to modern technology and regard it less unfavorably than in the past. 80% of consumers who dealt with a chatbot had a positive experience. The ability to receive answers at any time is the biggest benefit they see.
As a result, in 2021, businesses will continue to rely on the complementarity of humans and automation to improve the client experience.
Unified communications technologies for better customer experience
Daily work for a customer relations agent may be complex, efficiency decrease and the client experience is adversely affected. Staff might lose up to an hour each day between tools, and 77% have to stop customers waiting for internal reactions. While the emphasis is on customer pleasure, employee contentment is a major factor in customer service.
Agents may interact easily through several modalities (team chat, video and phone) with their team to obtain information they need and respond to requests faster and more efficiently, if the proper tools are provided. As the number of individuals working from home rises, the usage of unified communications solutions is increasingly crucial. In 2021, companies who are interested in improving their teams and customer interactions ought to prioritize this.
In the customer experience of 2021 digital is more essential than ever. Businesses will have a stronger interaction with clients, owing to improvements in automation, to support agents and the universality of new exchange methods, to position the human element at the center of the customer experience.
The omnichannel technology ensures a consistent customer experience
There are substantial consequences for your customer experience of utilizing or moving to an omnichannel approach from a multi channel or single channel strategy. They may call you whenever the customer wants and receive a consistent response, instead of fumbling around trying to find out how to reach you or receive help once you arrive.
The success of your customers and support personnel is far simpler to cope with omnichannel than multichannel. It is possible to follow the customer wherever they travel in your support ecosystem with integrated capabilities from omnichannel support software. That implies that you will always be aware of problems and may provide support or promote long-term solutions. You face the whole context of the consumer issue. This sort of customer information leads to valuable product feedback and a more viable and durable product.
What are the present capabilities of your team?
First, evaluate if you need a deeper understanding of your team’s skills to support their omnichannel approach. If you are already using multichannels, you should have a solid measurement and data package to back your choice. Be careful about all the numerous ways in which contacts are new, and you just give email help. Similarly, various support agents are interested in various types of assistance, where you will need to employ extra aid agents if your agents utilize just emails and telephones before omnichannel is introduced.
What are your consumers expectations?
Client support may be given in a variety of ways. These are the elements of an omnichannel environment:
- Phone
- Chat
- Self-service
- Social Media
It might be tough and impressive both for your consumer and yourself to offer all these channels from the outset. Analyze instances before making a choice for your omnichannel customer care. Do your customers like to connect by phone, e-mail or social media features? You may determine what the priority should be and who should be employed by learning the answers to these questions. Please note that different types of customers are interested in different media forms. For example, younger generations desire rapid, mobile and chat assistance whereas older generations prefer telephones or emails.
Creating a seamless customer experience through Omnichannel
Every company’s omnichannel approach is unique. It might cover all mobile platforms, as well as phone and chat for yours. Rather than attempting to manage and anticipate all of the possibilities ahead, look at what your consumers are asking for and develop on that.
- Choose a platform with an omnichannel dashboard: if there is no omnichannel support or dashboard for omnichannel aid on your present support platform, your team must examine moving to a new omnichannel customer service software. It’s hard to develop anything without problems, therefore your team and consumers will profit in the longer run by adopting a pre-built product.
- Organize the infrastructure from the inside out: it’s okay to use consumer feedbackl to predict what you may require in the future, but ultimately, you have to determine how your firm will operate on omnichannel. Talk to the folks within your team, find out what is important and what is not, and move on. Allow domestic growth with the realities in mind.
- Stick to your core basics: your team won’t have to complete it all the first time. You may make the adjustment more tolerable gradually in your strategy. After the foundation is established, you may start adding additional parts, without obliging your customers to rearrange their processes entirely.
- Automate your processes: customer service on an omnichannel does not include all your support staff. In fact, automation is a crucial aspect and one of the primary elements in lowering your first reaction time that will assist boost your NPS. Go to it if you are able to automate priority tickets or automated triages. It saves time and resources for your consumers while also improving your overall strategy.
- Boost cooperation amongst teams: your client’s success and sales teams, together with the assistance of your clients, are all part of the omnichannel ecosystem of your firm. In order to ensure a seamless experience in a single team, the discussion flow among teams is facilitated. This may be done through the integration of your omnichannel customer care software or through a single feature.
- Spend more time on mobile channels: More than any other media, Millennials and Gen Xers spend a lot of time on mobile. With this knowledge, it is important to provide the help they need in their chosen environment. In order to offer smooth multichannel customer care, your personnel should be able to reach consumers where they expect it.
- Add in-app choices. It will have a huge influence on your users if you provide customer assistance directly in the app, whether on your desktop or mobile. Including the potential of customers contacting you in the app if they have problems, among other considerations of how to provide the most efficient and seamless omnichannel expertise.
How Omnichannel enhances CX for Contact Centers?
Take the following statistics into account: About 70% of millennials buy and spend money online. It is essential to retain relationships through social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, your support staff and marketing team. Different generations differ and millennials are under pressure to connect social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) with what they purchase or do, except Gen X or Z. For them, omnichannel makes it much easier.
Some of the KPIs can be impacted by the support of your consumers on the omnichannel:
- NPS (net promoter score): via channels such as email or chat, although NPS (like social networking), on newer platforms, is lower than expected. NPS: Net promoter score
- Customer efforts: can be improved by allowing them to connect whenever and wherever they wish with their personnel.
- Customer rentention: those with a successful omnichannel approach maintain 89% of customers, whereas those with weak technologies retain only 30%.
- First Contact Resolution: Omnichannel Customer Service allows agents to track clients throughout the same discussion and to quickly resolve their first contacts. One omnichannel client care trip may start with a chat and then proceed to a call and an email detailing the following steps. This keeps our customers moving, avoiding the need for anybody to repeat or start from the start, as with a conventional multi-channel or single-channel experience.
If Customer Experience is the future, NobelBiz is how you get there
The objective of NobelBiz is to ensure that our customers are constantly one step ahead. Our systems are geared for scalability and performance while keeping the expenses under continual control.
With a high level of customizability and scalability NobelBiz OMNI+ is created. Our development and engineering teams are ready for the next integration depending on your contact center particular requirements, over and beyond our amazing list of integrations. Accommodate practically any channel: telephone, text messages, social media emails and Webchat. A lightning rapid deployment is featured with our cloud contact center solution. It will take around 74 hours to migrate data, install, link and integrate.
Abdelmounim Benharouga has always had a strong passion for writing and digital marketing. He started as a Digital Content Writer part of marketing department then moved to being Customer Success Manager for the African Region within the Nobelbiz team.