As the year winds down, it’s hard to tell what 2023 will bring. Some economic forecasts warn of a potential downturn illustrated by tech company layoffs and higher interest rates, while others highlight bright spots like increased consumer spending, travel, and GDP growth. One thing is for sure – the ability to be flexible and quickly adapt to customer and client needs will be more important than predicting correct market conditions for a specific snapshot of time.
Flexibility and constant evolution are tenets of working in the customer experience (CX) industry. When you’re creating amazing customer experiences, you're never done. What’s amazing today is not good enough tomorrow. There's a lot of really exciting work to be done with innovation relating to data, personalization, and cloud technology. Working in an agile model provides options to deliver great experiences to customers and clients in a variety of ways.
I love the combination of capabilities that we have to work with here at TTEC, whether it's CX strategy, CX design, technology capabilities, and of course the great talent that we have helping our clients serve their customers every day. I think the combination of these things is very powerful – the ability for us to help companies across all industries design, build, and operate unique and impactful customer experiences.
How to create adaptable customer operations
Creating these experiences starts with having clarity about what you want your brand to stand for. What's the authenticity of your brand and what's the essence of how you want customers to see you?
Authenticity about your brand is important. How can you be relevant to customers of different generations, customers in different parts of the world, who each want to interact with you in different ways in real time? The world of digitally enabled customer experiences—through a mix of technology, talent, and data-rich experiences—is super exciting. And for 2023, it will be required.
5 ways to adapt now for what’s next
1. Don’t go it alone: Focus on your core business and optimize your cost basis by outsourcing parts of your business such as care, inside sales, and back office. Whether you need help operating business as usual or managing a seasonal surge, a CX partner (like TTEC) helps deliver faster, better experiences with less risk than going it alone.
2. Lead with digital channels: Digital transformation is a big undertaking, but it’s possible to transform with a “small t.” Decrease handle time, reduce cost to serve and improve CX by leveraging non-voice channels like messaging and chat. When you understand what your customer wants to accomplish, it’s easy to automate simple tasks and provide trained associates to manage more complex interactions.
3. Intelligently automate: Do more with less by empowering customer self-service and augmenting the associate experience. Customers and associates want the same things: speed and convenience. Intelligent automation speeds up simple tasks so there is time and energy to tackle the most complex ones.
4. Explore nearshore, offshore, and remote work options: Optimize your outsourcing strategy with alternatives to in-house and onshore CX delivery. For both synchronous and asynchronous interactions, nearshore, offshore, and remote at-home solutions deliver great value to you and your customers.
5. Optimize how work gets done: Improve inefficient processes with managed services for workforce management (WFM), quality assurance (QA), and knowledge management (KM). A seamless employee experience translates to a more seamless customer experience.
There's a lot of fun work ahead for us and a lot of enthusiasm for what’s possible for the future of CX. I’m really excited to see what we and our clients do in 2023 and beyond.
