In the modern-day customer-focused digital economy, organizations of every size, in every industry, and every country pay more attention to Customer Experience (CX) than ever before. This is borne out by Gartner’s latest Customer Experience Management Survey that says that increased CX budgets at organizations indicate that they have “matured in their understanding of the business outcomes that CX delivers.”
CX is the new battleground for business. Organizations that get it right succeed. Those that don’t fail.
That’s why, every future-focused organization should make an effort to improve its CX processes, systems and tools consistently. And this includes customer-facing entities like omnichannel contact centers. It’s also important to remember that although great customer service is a critical imperative for the contact center, it is just one element of the larger CX picture. CX is more holistic and covers many touchpoints, interactions and experiences that your customers may have with your contact center at any stage of their brand journey. And this is the reason simply improving the quality of customer service is not enough. It’s also crucial to proactively focus on and ensure great CX throughout a customer’s lifecycle.
Here are 5 ways to improve your contact center’s CX and take it to the next level in 2021.
Find ways to improve customer service speeds:
Unsurprisingly, a majority of consumers rate an “immediate” response from customer service as important or very important. And why not? Which customer likes to be kept waiting or is happy to be transferred from agent to agent in a never-ending game of ping pong? None – that’s who!
Speedy service is of paramount importance if you’re looking to improve your contact center’s CX. So if lack the bandwidth, technology or skilled workforce to offer an almost-instant response, it’s time to upgrade.
Provide consistent service across every touchpoint:
Offering customers the best possible CX requires improving service delivery on every front and along every touchpoint. It also requires consistency in service quality whenever and however they interact with you, whether it’s via a phone call or tweet, social media post, or WhatsApp conversation. This endeavor starts by incorporating all the touchpoints into your contact center platform that your customers prefer.
In 2019, some 49% of customers used 3 to 5 channels to contact customer service. For many, voice is the preferred channel, although email, self-service, and live chat are also gaining traction. Does your contact center include these channels in its customer service portfolio? If not, you risk losing out on rich opportunities for customer engagement and thus for delivering great CX. With Cx Infinity’s CX Center, you can add the power of digital channels to your Cisco contact center and offer the highest level of customer engagement from one unified interface. Great CX starts with digital omnichannel engagement. And Cx Infinity makes this possible.
Solicit customer feedback:
Want to cut through the noise, and know how you can really improve CX at your contact center? Ask your customers!
By improving CX, you can improve customer satisfaction and retention and leverage cross-selling and up-selling opportunities. And by soliciting customer feedback – and making it easy for them to provide it – you can make the right changes that can help you achieve these goals. With a formal Customer Feedback Management (CFM) system, you can collect ongoing, real-time feedback to provide a consistent flow of reliable data you can use later to make informed decisions and improve your CX.
Ask customers what they love about your customer service. Also ask them what they hate and what you should be doing better. Encourage honesty and discourage brevity – the more details they provide, the better. Just make sure you ask the right questions and at the right frequency. Too many feedback questions or contact attempts, and your exercise will backfire!
Make CX improvement a collaborative process:
Instead of implementing a top-down approach to improve CX, look for ways to connect people with different smarts and skills to achieve synergy along the improvement journey. Collaboration can prevent the creation of echo chambers that bounce around and reflect predictable ideas and solutions. Through real conversations and honest exchanges carried out at multiple levels of the organization – from leadership to agents – collaboration can generate fresh ideas to solve CX problems.
To make collaboration even more powerful, it helps to know the end goal. What are we doing, and why? Why does it matter? What is our dream? Clarifying the answers to these key questions can simplify the CX improvement endeavor with less effort and less stress.
Include service options like self-service and virtual agents:
While many service interactions require a human touch and associated skills like judgment, empathy, and listening, many customers also appreciate the freedom and flexibility provided by self-service options and virtual agents. According to Gartner, these technologies will be among the Top 5 emerging technologies to significantly impact CX over the coming years. Here are the key benefits of including self-service and virtual agents at your contact center.
Virtual agents can provide quick answers to common queries, which speeds up response and resolution times – both of which are proven ways to improve CX. They can also free human agents from repetitive tasks to focus on more complex, value-adding activities and “high-touch interactions” that impress customers. When needed, they can also automatically reroute complex conversations to human agents. These capabilities provide customers with consistent, interactive and relevant CX that boost brand loyalty and advocacy.
With virtual agents, concerns like new or tired agents giving customers the wrong information are eliminated, along with other annoying human tendencies like interruptions, condescension and rudeness. This can also contribute to positive CX.
Cx Infinity’s Messaging and Customer Service Platform supports multiple channels like voice and video chat, email, SMS, and social media. It also includes a Smart Bot feature that can handle level 1 queries and provide intelligent answers and proactive service. It frees agents to focus on resolving complex issues and empowers customers to find quick answers to their common queries. Augment your human agents’ capabilities, and deliver unprecedented levels of service speed, personalization, and efficiency – a powerful trifecta for great CX.
Make a tangible difference to your CX with CX experts (who have CX in their name!)
In this article, we have outlined 5 time-tested strategies to improve CX at your contact center. But we understand that while although tips may appear simple, they are by no means easy. If CX improvement is your goal, but these ideas are beyond your organization’s capabilities, you will benefit by calling in experts who have these capabilities.
An experienced, on-demand contact center solution provider like CXInfinity can help you identify your CX gaps and create an improvement plan that will benefit your contact center and convert your customers into loyal brand advocates. Take your CX strategy to the next level in 2021; contact CXInfinity to schedule your free consultation with an expert today.
