The days of single-channel customer engagement and support are long gone. Today’s smart, digitally-savvy customers demand engagement and support via their preferred channels, as well as seamless channel-switching and personalized customer experiences (CX). According to recent research by McKinsey, these customers “expect personalized experiences and offers as table stakes” and tend to choose brands “based on ease and richness of end-to-end experience”.
And what happens if customers don’t get these personalized experiences?
Well, one recent survey found that 89% of consumers switch brands following a poor customer service experience, and U.S. companies stand to lose $1.9 trillion in consumer spending due to such experiences.
The good news is that companies and contact centers that deliver good CX also stand to gain a lot. For instance, 74% of customers are at least somewhat likely to buy based on CX alone, 61% will pay at least 5% more if they know they’ll get a good CX, and 56% feel that the quality of customer service impacts their (positive) view of a brand.
So how can your contact center deliver the memorable, personalized, and connected CX that your customers expect? And how can you eliminate CX-related issues and capture CX-related benefits?
Also Read: 6 Benefits Of Omnichannel Customer Engagement |
Answer: Implement an omnichannel strategy powered by omnichannel customer experience software.
Let’s see how.
How Omnichannel Contact Center Solutions Can Help You Deliver World-class CX
Many contact centers assume that the multichannel approach to customer engagement is enough to deliver great CX. Nothing could be further from the truth. Multichannel provides customers with a range of options to interact with a brand. However, since these channels run independently from each other, it also creates siloes between them.
Such a lack of integration between channels makes it difficult for customers to easily switch between them. And when they do, they have to start the interaction from scratch, repeating information and waiting longer for a resolution to their query. These issues create a lot of friction every time they interact with the contact center, which ultimately, impacts their CX.
Here’s where omnichannel contact centers, powered by omnichannel contact center software comes in. Omnichannel is a customer-centric approach that puts customers at the center of every engagement. Like multichannel, it allows them to choose their preferred channel. But unlike multichannel, it also enables them to seamlessly switch between channels as desired.
An omnichannel solution for contact centers integrates various channels into a unified, user-friendly platform. They make it possible for customers to choose whichever channel they prefer for brand interactions. Thus, Customer A can choose live chat over voice, Customer B can choose a chatbot over email, while Customer C can choose self-service over co-browsing. Moreover, each of these customers can switch from one of these channels to another, near-instantaneously and as required. Such seamless channel switching and integration enables every customer to enjoy uninterrupted service, personalized support, and consistent experiences over every channel.
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Other Benefits of Omnichannel Communication Platforms and Customer Engagement Software for Contact Centers
The chief benefit of an omnichannel customer experience management platform is that it ensures that every customer interaction with your brand results in a connected and engaging CX. Such a solution will unify case management across dozens of channels. Also, your customers’ favorite channels will be available at your contact center team’s fingertips, so agents can easily manage customer conversations and deliver personalized care to every customer.
The software connects all sources of customer data and leverages the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to deliver useful, actionable customer insights. Agents can access these insights at any time to quickly resolve customer requests and provide personalized support – throughout the customer’s journey and from a single window.
A high-end customer experience management software will also provide business-optimized bots, plus pre-built intents and integrations, so you can go live with your omnichannel strategy in next to no time. By integrating voice, video, email, messaging, live chat, skills-based routing, and sentiment analysis into a unified solution, the platform will empower you to deliver consistently excellent CX, right from Day 1.
Wrap Up
Per one recent CX benchmarking report, almost 82% of companies say that CX offers a competitive edge. Old-fashioned single-channel or multichannel approaches cannot help your business deliver the best-in-class CX that modern customers demand, much less achieve a CX-driven competitive edge.
An omnichannel support strategy, powered by an omnichannel digital customer experience platform like CXInfinity is the most effective way to meet these expectations and deliver delightful connected CX with every interaction and across channels. Click here to book a free, no-obligation demo of CXInfinity.