Customers driving unified communications

Ahead of Connected Business 2014, Mike England explains how the market is changing to address customer communication needs.

The focus should be on the customer

Customer contact centres fulfil different functions according to the organisation they serve and the industry that they function in. Whether they generate sales, resolve complaints or assist in answering general questions, contact centres are a key strategic asset. For industries such as insurance and electricity provision, their significance is enhanced by being one of the few points of direct customer contact. Therefore the quality of interactions and appropriateness of the channel is particularly important.

Regardless of its objectives, the focus should be on the customer – meeting expectations, enhancing service levels and improving satisfaction. The customer is empowered by technology and now expects to be able to engage with a company via its contact centre (including telephone, text, email, web chat, instant message, applications, blogs, rating websites, video and social media). The days of a call centre relying solely on telephone conversations have well and truly passed.

“Top management, CRM managers and sales teams are looking for operational dexterity, flexible ways with which to communicate with customers,” said Colin Mann, speaker at the 2013 Unified Communications Expo (since rebranded Connected Business). “The customer relationship has been reinvented, especially considering the popularity of social media, and as such, communication itself has changed.”

Customer satisfaction depends largely on the accessibility of the call centre

Service levels and customer satisfaction depend largely on the accessibility of the call centre, that is, how easy is it for a customer to get in touch with the company and begin the interaction. Starting this contact off in the right way is crucial to determine the tone going forward, and often sets the stage for customer satisfaction – irrespective of whether the contact is concluded satisfactorily on the first attempt.

Contact centres are finding it necessary to add more communication channels to their platforms in order to make getting in touch as easy as possible, and to meet the expectations that customers have regarding these methods. This includes the traditional means of telephone and email, and has extended to include real-time web chats, instant messages, and social media to a small degree.

The challenge is bringing these different channels together

The challenge for contact centres is to bring together these different channels to ensure the same consistent customer experience across each channel. A unified communications strategy can assist in achieving this, as the same business and CRM processes can be applied across the channels to make sure interactions are handled seamlessly regardless of medium.

Using social media as a service channel is changing the call centre environment

There has been lot of hype about using social media as a service channel, and while it is nowhere close to realising its full potential, it is changing the call centre environment. Its effectiveness comes from integrating it with other service channels and, just like with other media, conversations must be tracked, recorded and measured to ensure interactions are meeting expectations.

Many organisations are content to set up Facebook pages or Twitter accounts and monitor them and respond as part of an online reputation process, but for high-profile brands particularly, this is becoming an area of growing importance. Social media can become part of an organisation’s self-service support structure, and in the not-too-distant future will play a larger role in meeting customer satisfaction and service levels.

The market is changing to address customer communication needs

The contact centre has evolved – partly due to technology advancements, such as ACD, IVR and cloud, and partly due to customer demand. Customer satisfaction and performance levels remain among the most important tenets of any call centre and, with the way that the market is changing to address customer communication needs, technologies like unified communications will be playing a greater role going forward.

With thanks to Mike England, content director of Imago Techmedia