5 Critical Requirements for a Future-Ready Contact CentereBook

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IS YOUR CONTACT CENTER FUTURE-READY?How to Deliver an Effortless Customer Experience (CX) Across Multiple Channels

It may not be a comfortable question, but

nevertheless necessary to ask yourself: does your

contact center infrastructure have the flexibility

to readily support new paths of customer

communication? Are you easily able to add new

channels such as video, or do you break into a

sweat just thinking about it?

At the core of the issue, your infrastructure

may be based on technology that is dated from

back in the day when customer contact was

synonymous with a phone call.

Today, your customers expect so much more.

They want the agent who answers their call

to know they’ve already sent an email and

engaged in web chat. You may be struggling to

link all these customer touch points at the same

time you’re asked to reduce costs and improve

resource utilization.

Let’s take a look at how you can get started!

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1 Step Beyond Multichannel

2 Distribute Work From a Single Point

3 Virtualize Your Resources

4 Manage Off-line Work

5 Optimize Your Workforce

5 CRITICAL REQUIREMENTS TO BUILDING A FUTURE-READY CONTACT CENTER

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1. STEP BEYOND MULTI-CHANNELYour Customers Expect Omni-channel

If your contact center began as a voice-only call center, you may have added email, web chat, video, and other channels as needed. Perhaps your infrastructure didn’t readily allow you to add these new channels, and they were implemented as independent, siloed solutions. You’re certainly not alone in this scenario!

But, to distinguish your company from its competitors requires a new way of serving customers. Instead of merely enabling customers to send an email or an SMS, exceptional and differentiated customer service requires knowledge of previous interactions. You need not just multi-channel, but omnichannel.

Simply put, omni-channel means true continuity of the customer’s experience. By giving agents immediate access to previous interactions, you deliver that continuity. You create the perfect setting for highly satisfied customers.

“Companies that connect all their customer service channels… report 89% customer retention, compared to 33% for those that haven’t.” Aberdeen Group1

1. Destination CRM article: http://www.destinationcrm.com/Articles/Editorial/Magazine-Features/The-4-Key-Customer-Service-Omnichannel-Considerations-97686.aspx –

Aberdeen report “Ominchannel Customer Care”

Where are we in danger of missing service levels?

How can I handle more work if I can’t add more agents?

What is the best way to handle emails without impacting wait time for callers?

Who is the best agent to help this particular customer?

Are there agents doing email who could help me deal with this unexpected call spike?

2. DISTRIBUTE WORK FROM A SINGLE POINT Build Routing Rules to Optimally Serve Your Entire Business

Managing all conflicting needs in your contact center is a never-ending balancing act. Do you ever feel like a juggler, barely able to keep all the balls in the air?

You need a single decision engine to manage all customer interactions. Then you can create business rules that best serve your business as a whole. With every new contact, customer needs are matched with the very best available resource.

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Economies of Scale Meet service levels across the business by dynamically expanding your agent pool to include agents in other locations.

Business ContinuityIf natural or man-made disasters occur, your contact center doesn’t miss a beat.

Add work-at-home agents Find talented, educated agents across the country or the globe. Increase agent retention while lowering hiring and training costs.

3. VIRTUALIZE YOUR RESOURCESThe Magic Formula for Doing More With Less

Many companies today are spread across multiple sites - locations that grew organically or were added via mergers and acquisitions. Each may have its own contact center. You may have branch offices where employees are busy at times but idle during off-peak periods. Envision being able to pull available resources from all these locations as needed. Now that’s a great way to meet service levels!

What do you gain by virtualizing your contact center?

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4. MANAGE OFF-LINE WORKIt’s a Critical Part of Your Customer’s Experience

The bottom line is this: a customer or prospect’s perception of your company doesn’t depend solely on their phone call, web chat, or email response. You may have linked the customer journey through all touch points, ensuring the agent who answers the call has knowledge of all previous interactions. But is the offline work delivered in a timely manner?

Your agent performance could be flawless, yet the overall customer experience negative if back office follow-through isn’t up to par.

Unfortunately it’s least common denominator. One weak link can damage the customer relationship – or send the customer or prospect into the arms of your competitor. By integrating customer contacts with back office fulfillment, you ensure complete follow-through and drive a positive business outcome.

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Deliver best-in-class customer experience Ensure the optimal number of agents are staffed for each channel.

Improve operational efficiency Contain costs by right-staffing: meet service levels across all channels without overstaffing

Ensure agent happiness Give them a variety of work, time off, and schedule bidding and swapping

Comply with regulations Use speech and text analytics to ensure regulatory compliance, agent adherence to scripts, and to ferret out problems and opportunities.

5. OPTIMIZE YOUR WORKFORCELooking Beyond Agent Scheduling and Adherence

If you have more than a handful of agents, chances are you’re using a Workforce Management solution for agent scheduling and adherence. But WFM is just one tool in your toolbox to optimize agents and the customer experience.

Your Workforce Optimization solution needs to:

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“Any one channel that degrades the customer experience will negatively impact all others.” 451 Research1

1. “Drive More Valuable Customer Experience with Proactive Engagement Across the Life Cycle” – Sheryl Kingstone, Director, 451 Research, June 2014

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ADDRESSING THESE 5 CRITICAL REQUIREMENTSHow Do We Get There?

Perhaps it’s time to ask whether your current contact center solution is flexible enough to deliver the superior customer journey your customers demand. Do you ever feel like you’re dealing with a tangle of point solutions, bolted together with duct tape and chicken wire?

Force-fitting more channels into an aging infrastructure is likely not the optimal answer.

A modern customer service organization should be built on modern technology instead of old-fashioned monolithic hardware. Using an open, standards-based SIP contact center solution, you can drastically reduce architectural complexity and establish a foundation for innovation.

BUILDING YOUR FUTURE-READY CONTACT CENTERGenesys can help ensure your contact center is ready to meet your customers’ demands, today and tomorrow.

Based on averages of actual benefits realized by Genesys customers, you can expect to see significant improvements in metrics such as transfers, as well as costs and downtime. On average, our customers are seeing:

Reduction in intra-site transfers

Reduction in inter-site transfers

Reduction in infrastructure costs

Reduction in downtime

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Genesys is the market leader in omnichannel customer experience (CX) and contact center solutions in the cloud and on-premises. We help brands of all sizes make great CX great business. The Genesys Customer Experience Platform powers optimal customer journeys consistently across all touchpoints, channels and interactions to turn customers into brand advocates. Genesys is trusted by over 4,500 customers in 80 countries to orchestrate more than 100 million digital and voice interactions each day.

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