Our last post provided a common understanding, yet not a defined definition, of what customer experience (CX) is (find that article here). With the customer experience being the sum of all touchpoints the consumer has with your business and brand, one important element to the CX umbrella is customer service. Unfortunately, we’re a long way from the days when simply providing good customer service was enough to keep customers coming back.
In today’s customer-centric world, it is clear that customer expectations are increasing at a pace that many contact center operations are unable to keep up with. Consumers expect companies to know who they are, when to contact them, which products they bought, and, ultimately, what they want next. Furthermore, consumers want to engage through their channel of choice and receive a real-time resolution to any question or issue.
As every business’ CX initiatives strive for this, the reality is customers are frustrated. Contact center agents struggle as they are ill-equipped to perform the actions necessary to meet customer expectations. With research showing that 81% of consumers believe companies deliver disconnected experiences, there is plenty of potential to improve on current perceptions.
Identifying the disconnects
The truth is that any interaction, direct or indirect, impacts CX…the list of factors is endless. In general terms for contact centers, there are three areas of function which any or all could result in a ‘disconnected experience’ for the customer.
Disconnected Interactions. Customers want the ability to connect from every medium and effortlessly move between them without conversational interruption. But less than 10% of companies deliver a seamless omnichannel experience in real-time.
Disconnected Data. With data being scattered across multiple systems, agents are inefficient and spend up to 30% of their time searching for information. On average, it takes more than 10 desktop and back-office systems to solve a single inquiry. Agents end up looking incompetent as customers grow dissatisfied.
Disconnected Processes. Front and back offices are siloed more than ever. Customers get transferred from department to department to find the right person to handle the task at hand. Consumers get frustrated due to increased call times and repeating the same issues and information to different agents.
How to tackle these challenges?
Whether it’s Disconnected Interactions, Disconnect Data or Disconnect Processes, businesses must understand where customers are negatively impacted in the customer journey. With the incredible amount of customer information businesses have access to, combined with the right tools, there is the opportunity to overcome these disconnects. In our next post, we’ll look at Disconnected Interactions and what to look for in CCaaS technology to resolve this challenge.
If you’d like to learn more about our cloud-based contact center solution or schedule a demo, email us at ccaas@leap.tel.