Although very useful for less complex requests, self-service tools are not always enough to resolve queries. The same is true for agents handling complex calls, unless they have backup from experts!
Mikael Morillon, Product Marketing Manager at Odigo, explains how you can rethink internal and external contact centre communication to offer your customers all the expertise they need.
Transformation Is the Way to Meet Changing Needs
According to a 2023 ECCCSE report, many European consumers believe customer service has deteriorated in recent years.
Customer expectations, influenced by the repercussions of unfavourable economic and political conditions, have risen faster than the ability of many suppliers to meet them.
To bridge the gap and repair opinion, companies in general and contact centres in particular need to put customer experience and satisfaction at the heart of their initiatives.
Adapting to Technology and Consumer Habits
The most successful contact centres are those that adjust their strategies in line with technological advances.
Once called “call centres” when the only possible channel was the telephone, they became “contact centres” after the advent of e-mail and smartphones
Expand Your Contact Centre
Today’s technologies make it possible to avoid failed transfers to experts and cycling through the IVR numerous times, which invariably leads to repeat calls, customer repetition, overly long processing times and disjointed experiences.
One such technology is a high-performance routing system that takes into account the skills of each advisor. Establishing these direct links between customers and those with the knowledge to actually resolve a query is crucial.
Making Expertise Available to Customers
Time to Optimise an Already Well-Established Approach
It’s no surprise that hardworking agents, who interact with customers all day long, can’t also be expected to be experts in every sub-area of the business.
Even with a great onboarding and up-to-date training, front-line agents often need to call on specialist teams or back-office staff to solve a customer problem.
According to Metrigy 2023, 47% of companies allow people from outside the contact centre to participate in resolving customer queries and 30% of employees help out in times of need.
Cooperation and teamwork are highly valued soft skills for personal and professional development, as well as for company growth, provided there are boundaries in place to prevent ‘helping out’ from encroaching on an employee’s primary tasks.
The Extended Contact Center Concept
The idea of bringing consumers and experts together is nothing new. However, companies need simple, effective processes and tools to ensure that these communications take place efficiently and can be monitored.
This is where Extended Contact Center comes in, with problem-specific tools that deliver contact centre flexibility, reliability and speed.
| Problem | Solution |
|---|---|
| Agents don’t know who is available to help. | Indicate real-time availability of back-office staff by displaying availability status. |
| Experts don’t have enough history or context to effectively deal with requests. | Provide access to the customer’s summary and detailed context before the interaction even begins. |
| Interactions with some employees are not recorded, controlled or stored for data optimisation. | Monitor all interactions, including advisor-expert and customer-expert interactions, conducted on the same platform. |
| Customers are frustrated by slow progress and unclear answers. | Enable faster, more accurate resolution thanks to shared context and direct contact with experts |
In addition to the operational benefits, organisations also benefit from improved cost efficiency. The solution itself is pay-per-use basis while IT and call transfer costs are also reduced.
Combine Innovation and Ease of Use
Well-Designed Tools Make Adoption Effortless
The aim of any new tool should be to facilitate the work of its users, and to offer improvements to workplace wellbeing.
Often, though, organisations end up making a compromise between new functionality and ease of adoption to avoid disrupting employees’ workflows.
Extended Contact Center doesn’t drastically change the way any of your employees work, but it does streamline and facilitate communication between departments, teams and individuals. Your teams will save time, optimise their workloads and gain access to the resources they need.
The offer also includes specific functionalities for each user profile. You can select the most useful tools for each of your employees, avoiding adding unnecessary complexity to their day-to-day roles or their consoles.
Main Features of the Offer
- Configuration and availability – allow experts to define and adjust their availability parameters to ensure flexible management of their accessibility.
- Advanced customer management – explore the customer portfolio view to access interaction insights and contextual details, and the mini directory for fast, efficient management of essential contacts.
- Call allocation and transfer – automate the transfer of calls to specific teams and/or reassign unanswered calls at the click of a button.
- Analysis and monitoring – analyse call data (handling, processing time, etc.) and other key indicators directly in the unified platform.
A Solution That Can Be Integrated With Your UCaaS Tools
Odigo Extended Contact Center is a complete tool that can be used on its own, offering a common business application for all employees.
The solution also integrates with your existing processes or already established unified communication tools such as Microsoft Teams and RingCentral. Allowing your team to enjoy the benefits of the solution without disrupting established working habits.
In Summary:
- Adapting to the multiplication of channels, technological advances and the growing complexity of interactions is key to providing customers with the service they need.
- Offer all your customers the expertise they need. It provides you with a business application so agents and back-office staff can communicate easily to solve customer problems together.
- Benefit from an application that’s easy to use and optimises the workload of both agents and back-office staff while concurrently improving monitoring.
This blog post has been re-published by kind permission of Odigo – View the Original Article
For more information about Odigo - visit the Odigo Website
About Odigo
Odigo helps large organisations connect with individuals through world-class, cloud-based contact centre solutions. Our cutting-edge, proprietary technologies enable a seamless, efficient, omnichannel experience for your customers and a satisfying, engaging experience for your service agents. Find out more about Odigo
Call Centre Helper is not responsible for the content of these guest blog posts. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of Call Centre Helper.
Author: Odigo
Published On: 14th Jun 2024 - Last modified: 23rd Oct 2024
Read more about - Guest Blogs, Odigo
