In this age of globalization where companies are expanding to new markets across the world, business leaders must also consider the convergence toward a global contact center model.
Businesses that are establishing diverse contact centers in various markets must embrace a larger, inter-connected communications universe in which messaging and engagement strategies appear seamless from country to country and customer data is centralized.
To deliver the type of frictionless omnichannel support experience customers seek, organizational leaders need to take a deep look at their underlying contact systems and processes and reengineer them for today’s customer interactions. TTEC offers five tips for advancing your omnichannel strategy on a global scale:
- Strike a balance. When evaluating new omnichannel support technologies, decision-makers should ensure that they strike a careful balance between prioritizing the business impact that’s anticipated with the potential upheavals caused by introducing new applications and processes.
- Don’t overlook the importance of change management. In a contact center, technology is not plug-and-play. It requires sensitivity to the organizational and operational impacts.
- Adopt analytics capabilities. Analytics-driven and technology-enabled support tools provide associates and other customer-facing employees with the customer’s complete history right at their fingertips. Having customer insights readily available empowers associates with the ability to provide each customer with rapid, relevant service in the channels of their choice to boost satisfaction and loyalty. These capabilities can include sharing video tutorials or images with a customer for a technical support call, or using geo-location information to point a customer to a local office or branch for face-to-face support, if needed.
- Focus on service levels. Companies that provide exceptional omnichannel customer service can distinguish their brands and strengthen business performance. For example, companies with higher-than-average customer service satisfaction scores realize 9 percent year-over-year sales growth compared with just 3 percent for companies with below average scores, according to the U.K. Customer Satisfaction Index. Thus, companies that want to survive and thrive must be innovative.
- Ensure scalability. As new social and contact channels continue to emerge in various countries, organizational leaders need a contact center platform that enables the company to adapt quickly to customers’ channel preferences. This type of versatility can help global organizations anticipate and respond to customers via the channels they prefer. The insights drawn from data and technology can also help contact center leaders across the globe identify and plan for the skills needed by associates, along with tactics used to recruit, train, and incentivize them properly.
While the right contact center platform to facilitate and manage customers on a global scale is a key ingredient for delivering the types of experiences that customers expect today, it’s ultimately just one of the elements needed to achieve success tomorrow. Organizational leaders will need to re-think the design of the global contact center to enhance collaboration and productivity. In addition, decision-makers must reexamine existing processes that make it difficult for customers to resolve issues quickly and easily, for frustrating, fruitless experiences will ultimately boost attrition.
