Tech-Infused Transformation: 5 Strategies to Amplify Your Contact Center Experience

In the early 2000s, contact centers were called “call centers” because they mainly dealt with customer calls. However, with advancements in technology, communication channels expanded.

Soon, call centers came to encompass various channels of customer interaction. Their customers reached out to them through emails, live chat, social media, and various other channels.

Expanding support to different channels comes at an added cost for a business. But it is essential to meet rising customer expectations.

Successful companies readily spend significant amounts on technology to improve customer experiences. This is because digital transformation prepares enterprises for long-term success.

Digital transformation is indispensable for growth because of the following reasons.

• Today’s tech-savvy customers demand personalized support. Digital transformation aids in meeting their expectations.
• Digital transformation makes it easy to collect and analyze customer data. It helps to plan better customer engagement strategies.
• Digital transformation makes it easier to keep up with changing contact center trends.
• Digitally enriched customer experiences lay the foundation for better customer retention and loyalty.

Five ways to transform your contact center for better customer experiences

Digital transformation of a contact center is a complex task. End-to-end implementation is time-consuming. It also requires the involvement of the contact center crew, business, and customers.

Despite the challenges, organizations embrace digital transformation because of its benefits. By putting the contact center at the heart of the business, sales will improve. It also leads to higher ROI and improved customer satisfaction.

Most organizations opt for a phased approach.

But the question is where to start.

Here are the five areas where you should invest in technology for long-term gains.

• Automation and AI

AI and Automation are vital for scaling contact center operations in the long term.

Automation streamlines workflows. It makes it possible to automate repetitive tasks like call logging and routing. This reduces the need for manual intervention. It also minimizes manual tasks and reduces the scope for errors.

Meanwhile, AI-powered virtual assistants like Engage 360 can significantly reduce the workload. Bots can be programmed to handle high volumes of calls without fatigue or exhaustion. They can also do call transcriptions and guide customers with self-service options. This frees up human agents to focus on critical tasks.

Additionally, AI algorithms can analyze customer data and offer valuable insights for decision-making.

Thus, the combination of automation and AI boosts productivity. It also makes it easy to scale operations as the business grows.

• Omnichannel service

Today’s tech-savvy customers use a variety of channels to engage with businesses.

Depending on the demographic, they may use WhatsApp, webchat, Facebook Messenger, or Telegram to reach the business.

You must be present on all these channels for effective customer engagement. Additionally, you should also offer a seamless brand experience across channels. Hence, it is imperative to embrace an omnichannel approach.

Metrigy predicts that 43% of companies will integrate omnichannel by the end of 2023. This means that organizations that fail to do this will lose their competitive edge.

• Integrate your platforms

Contact center operations become more complex as the business grows. This makes it essential to revisit the way communication is handled.

An integrated platform will simplify contact center operations. It will unify communications, the contact center, and CRM solutions. It will also integrate all these platforms with the existing back-end system.

The benefit of this approach is that agents gain easy access to all the information they need. This helps them support customers better. Over time, it will also reduce operational costs and increase revenue.

Choosing advanced solutions like Odoo enhances operational efficiency. Integrating the contact center into the wider business with Microsoft Teams will also enable better collaboration between different teams and lead to better customer experiences.

• Offer self-service options

In the past, customers would not hesitate to call a contact center for support. But today, most customers prefer the self-service mode.

Being tech-savvy, they prefer swift resolutions with minimum direction. So, it makes sense for businesses to offer self-service modes, at least on a small basis. Modern automated task management platforms will facilitate this.

For instance, financial companies can provide opening and closing hours, balance information, and other details through the self-service mode. Based on customer acceptance levels, they can scale to more complex interactions.

Not only will it help in delivering faster responses at lower cost, but will also improve Customer satisfaction levels.

However, offering efficient self-service modes is an ongoing task. You should use analytic tools to identify where customers get stuck. They should train their AI chatbots to help customers overcome these issues.

Businesses should also realize that customers prefer human interaction for disputes and complex queries. Hence, you should continuously optimize the workflow so that the transition to agents is seamless and swift.

The same should also apply to transitions between virtual agents and real agents. The process should be seamless for better customer experiences.

• Embrace the power of reporting and analytics

Contact centers must constantly evolve and adapt to keep up with customer expectations. This is where reports and analytics are valuable tools.

Evaluation of reports is vital to optimize agent training. It is also important for structuring the customer engagement strategy.

If your contact center still relies on legacy systems, you will lack critical insights into the customer journey. Upgrade to a more modern contact center system that generates reports and provides analytics on the go. This will make troubleshooting easier.

Digital transformation will enable businesses to tap into customer data and use their feedback to streamline the engagement process.

To Wrap it up…

Upgrading a contact center experience is an ongoing process.

A forward-thinking business should start this process by building a solid foundation with technology invested in the right way. It will help you supercharge your contact center and transform it from a cost center to a profit center.

As experts in delivering top-notch, targeted customer engagement solutions for contact centers, Voxtron can help you transform your contact center operations digitally. Contact our team to discuss your needs. Together, we can ensure that your business is equipped to deliver the best-in-class customer experiences.