Businesses from virtually every sector are migrating more of their tools, technologies, and processes to the cloud.
Why? Because the cloud allows brands to unlock the agility they need to remain innovative and competitive in a complex landscape. It even assists with ensuring business continuity, allowing teams to stay productive regardless of where they may be.
Through CCaaS platforms, companies can implement highly scalable strategies for customer experience.
These platforms offer a range of advantages, from reduced operational costs to improved efficiencies and even improved business differentiation. It’s little wonder that analysts predict that the total value of the CCaaS market will double from 2022 to 2027.
However, the benefits companies can access with these tools depend on their implementation. Here’s how organizations can ensure they’re getting the most value from their CCaaS solutions.
1. Embrace the Power of Omnichannel
One of the first and easiest ways for businesses to increase the potential of their CCaaS solution is to ensure they leverage an omnichannel ecosystem. Omnichannel contact centers improve business efficiency and enhance customer experience simultaneously.
They ensure agents can track and respond to conversations from various platforms in one place, reducing the need to use multiple tools and applications. Omnichannel solutions also provide businesses with a more comprehensive view of the customer journey and allow them to maintain excellent visibility over their entire CCaaS strategy.
Perhaps most importantly, an omnichannel environment will ensure that business leaders can deliver inbound and outbound contact center experiences to customers on the channels of their choice. This lets clients access the service they need, whether they prefer to communicate via chat apps like WhatsApp, social media, video, or voice.
2. Leverage Integrations
As customer expectations continue to evolve and the average buyer journey grows more complex, agents in the contact center rely on many tools to achieve business goals. The average company often takes advantage of various systems, from UCaaS and collaboration platforms, to enable effective teamwork between staff and service desks for tracking tickets.
Choosing a CCaaS platform capable of offering integrations with the technologies employees are already using can deliver phenomenal benefits. It reduces the “app overwhelm” issue in the digital CX landscape and improves productivity levels. Plus, it can also empower agents to offer better customer service by providing them with access to the resources they need to thrive in one unified environment.
For instance, companies could integrate their contact center platform with their CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools to help agents deliver clients more personalized, relevant experiences. Integrating with knowledgebases and data storage solutions means employees can more easily find the information they need to resolve problems. There’s even the option to integrate CCaaS solutions with sales tools to boost conversion rates and team performance.
3. Unlock Insights with Analytics
One of the most effective ways to access additional value within a CCaaS system is to take advantage of insights, analytics, and reports. The more data a company can collect about everything from staff performance and engagement levels to customer satisfaction, the more it can make intelligent decisions for growth.
Yet, as Ben Booth, CEO of MaxContact, warns: “Data is key, but there must be action from the data to create meaningful changes.”
“Many tools now unlock value in text and speech from customer sentiment and groupings allow for changes in training and behavior to improve CX but also AX (agent experience).”
Indeed, several CCaaS solutions today come with comprehensive reporting and analytics tools capable of surfacing in-depth insights. They may include customizable dashboards, which provide overviews of real-time metrics and KPIs relevant to the company’s performance so that agents can keep track of progress towards professional goals.
Also, CCaaS tools may include historical reporting features, allowing business leaders to spot patterns and trends in service requirements as they emerge.
These reporting solutions can help business leaders to effectively forecast staffing requirements and demand levels to ensure they’re running an efficient workplace. There are even tools that leverage artificial intelligence to derive insights into customer intent and sentiment from speech.
4. Experiment with Automation
CCaaS solutions can offer businesses an excellent way to boost workplace efficiency and reduce operational costs. When financial issues are becoming increasingly concerning for many business leaders, the ability to streamline processes and operations is essential.
While providing employees with an all-in-one environment for customer service can be a great way to boost efficiency, companies can also boost the benefits of their CCaaS solution with automation.
“Machine Learning and automation will be some of the biggest advancements in the CCaaS space in the next few years, with agent real time guidance and conversational AI,” says Booth.
“But, most of the time the wins are from small automation tasks such as ID&V checks in the IVR saving or auto-summarizations of calls posted back to a CRM.”
Another example is, leveraging automatic dialling tools in the outbound contact center can improve agent productivity by up to 300 percent. Such automation solutions can enable companies to create comprehensive customer self-service strategies in inbound contact centers too.
Building bots, automated FAQ systems, and similar tools can provide customers quick and convenient ways to solve problems without human assistance. This reduces the workload for contact center agents and allows them to focus more on the tasks that deliver the most value to the business and customers. Automated tools can assist agents during conversations, providing instant access to customer data and knowledge with AI algorithms.
5. Enhance the Employee Experience
Finally, while many companies focus on the CX benefits associated with cloud-based technologies when shifting into the CCaaS landscape, it’s essential not to overlook the impact of employee experience. Empowered, supported, and educated employees can deliver better service to customers, increasing company satisfaction and retention rates.
Noting this, Booth adds:
“With the new technologies, we shouldn’t just be listening to customers we should be listening to the agent and recognising and escalating concerns in the same way we do with customers.”
Moreover, companies should choose CCaaS solutions that offer intuitive, easy-to-use interfaces that boost employee adoption rates. At the same time, it’s essential to ensure staff members can access the right training and support when leveraging new tools. Providing staff with the necessary educational resources ensures they can take full advantage of the available tools.
Onboarding new staff members with a careful training strategy and providing team members with ongoing insights into how they can effectively leverage each tool in the contact center environment, will ensure businesses can access the best value from their CCaaS investment.
MaxContact works with many businesses to deliver CCaaS solutions that meet their unique requirements. To learn more, visit: www.maxcontact.com
