As organisations strive to differentiate themselves from competitors, many are investing heavily in developing a stellar, unified customer experience (CX) across all touchpoints and channels. And rightfully so, with research from the Tempkin Group finding that 86 percent of consumers were likely to make a repeat purchase from a company if they received great CX, while only 13 percent would return if CX was poor.
Customers are increasingly at the forefront of business decision making, and subsequently organisations are prioritising the cultivation of positive brand experiences for every customer interaction, regardless of channel (according to Salesforce, 75 percent of people expect a consistent experience across all channels). While many are solely focused on online and in-person channels, companies should also include contact centres in their CX strategies, given that the phone is the customer service channel of choice in the US according to Microsoft’s 2017 report on the state of global customer service.
With this in mind, we wanted to examine the following trends in the contact centre industry, and how brands can implement effective CX strategies by leveraging these tools and considerations.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning
Providing positive CX at every touchpoint relies heavily on AI and machine learning capabilities. On the contact centre front, it can be used to route calls to the appropriate agent most likely to provide the best outcome based on past experiences, customer satisfaction scores and interaction data. It can also be used to prioritise calls based on business value and agent-customer compatibility. Given the projected growth of contact centres (5 -10 percent in the next year according to Forrester), organisations will continue to rely on AI/ML to keep contact centres sustainable.
Real time speech analytics
Effectively understanding customer sentiment and intent is a difficult task for brands (especially when interactions are over the phone) but it plays a significant role in cultivating customer loyalty. Voice analytics can empower organisations to read between the lines and extract insights from audio that would have otherwise been missed – enabling companies to predict and automate interactions, which can then be used to inform customer centric business decisions.
Consumption based pricing model
Traditionally, contact centre solutions have been expensive, clunky and outdated. In order to truly strengthen CX, companies should adopt innovative tools that allow customers to pay for only what they use, rather than slapping them with a one-size fits all agreement. A consumption based model that gives customers access to all features, while only charging for what’s used, democratises the technology for companies of all sizes and budgets.
As organisations finesse CX strategies, it’ll be important for them to look for contact centre solutions like ZaiLab that facilitate positive experiences through technical advancements and flexible pricing models.
Guest Blog by Nour Addine Ayyoub, CEO and founder, ZaiLab
