The tides of business have changed and being able to connect has never felt more important. Businesses are seeking better ways to engage their employees and their customers, which is why modern contact centers are popping up in places we would never have expected previously.
What's Changed in the Modern Contact Center
Today, industries like medical, financial, manufacturing, and legal are using contact centers to engage in new and exciting ways by bringing faster call resolutions, seamless omnichannel options, and increased mobility. Professional sports teams are also revolutionizing how they interact with fans through the modern contact center, offering seat-side transactions that are more expedient for staff and more satisfying for customers.
Even school districts see the contact center as vital in becoming more connected to their students, parents, and communities, using the platform for mass notification during school closures, and handling high call volumes during enrollment periods or emergencies.
Numerous contact center software features are driving this migration. Here are some of the vital ones that are fueling these new adoptions:
Omnichannel Builds Agent Efficiency and Productivity
Offering customers a way to engage on their terms isn't new. Many businesses employ multiple digital channels like email, phone, text, and social media as touchpoints. However, while this approach allows the customer to contact your company in the way that feels most comfortable, it's not seamless. There are multiple apps involved that probably don’t communicate with each other.
A true omnichannel contact center offers a consistent experience across all channels because all communication resides on one platform. Regardless of medium, agents receive vital customer data and histories at the start of each interaction. That makes every correspondence more personalized and efficient, leading to lower wait times and higher first-contact resolutions.
Think of it this way, omnichannel is the difference between an agent greeting your customer with, "Who do I have the pleasure of speaking with today?" or "Hello Patrick, are you calling about the flight you just booked?"
Bottom line, omnichannel contact centers help make agents more efficient and productive, translating to cost savings for the company and better service for your customers.
Mobility Empowers Agents Through Access to Communication Tools
When looking for ways to empower your team look no further than the modern contact center. The mobility it provides gives employees a way to work from anywhere with an internet connection. When your communication system is in the cloud, everyone has access to the same tools from one platform connecting employees to their peers and their supervisors.
Whether they're remote or on-location, data is present in real-time, so business hums along without missing a beat. Focusing on staff productivity leads to shorter hold times, better customer outcomes, and happier employees and customers.
Artificial Intelligence Bolsters Agent Skillset
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the process of machine programming to collect, synthesize, and learn from data, thereby mimicking human actions. Interactive voice response (IVR) and skills-based routing are two AI-driven cloud contact center features that help provide higher service levels by generating better insights and more efficient processes. Let's take a look at each:
IVR
You probably know what IVR means even if you don't recognize the term. Simply put, interactive voice response is a call menu where the system interacts with customers to collect information, then presents self-service dialing or voice options for their call.
IVRs can provide a host of transactions without a human agent like:
It can also impart other essential information to callers, such as promotions, updates, news alerts or self-help instructions.
IVR systems used to be expensive, complicated, and time-consuming to set up. Today, contact center software has interactive voice response integrated into the platform, meaning it's accessible to companies of any size.
IVR was not developed to replace human agents and can in fact help team members overall by removing the necessity to deal with smaller customer issues. Its overall purpose is to make your staff more effective with less opportunity for burnout.
Skills Based Routing
Skills-based routing makes sure your customers get to the person best suited to resolve their issue without having to be transferred or repeat themselves to multiple agents. The goal is to provide smoother, faster resolutions.
When a call is received, the IVR menu offers options for routing to either an automated solution or a live agent, based on the customer's initial interaction. Then the skills-based router determines which agent has the optimal skill set to assist the customer and places the call in the appropriate queue.
Skills-based routing is customizable and determined by analyzing call center data on agent skill sets and availability. With a modern cloud contact system, you'll have the data you need to know where training opportunities arise, and which agents are best skilled in specific instances.
Ultimately, all these new tools combined lead to better customer service due to lower wait times and higher first call resolutions, while improving employee efficiency and morale.
To find out more about how the modern cloud contact center and new technologies can help your business, contact us here.
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