Let’s start our story with a man named Jim. A coffee connoisseur, Jim opens a café where he whips up a great cup of coffee but isn’t exactly skilled at brewing up good customer service. He and his staff try to handle complaints themselves, but all they know about is coffee and not so much on how to manage their customers.
Too often I’ve seen Jim’s predicament in some of the best enterprise organizations. They want the prestige of running their own contact center but have little to no customer service expertise. This results in poorly managed omnichannel experiences, siloed channels, and frustrating customer experiences.
Organizations need to recognize the value of focusing on what they do best in their industry while finding a partner to deliver CX expertise.
Here are some key benefits I’ve seen over the years from organizations that have made the leap to CX partners.
New services, different mindsets, same you
The first thing to recognize is the wealth of knowledge your organization gains by partnering with a CX expert with a global footprint across many industries. One of the biggest issues I’ve seen is that organizations that maintain their own contact center can become incredibly stagnant. If an associate has spent two years only answering voice queries in one industry, it creates a sense of tunnel vision. Meanwhile, partnering with a CX partner allows a brand to dip into a wealth of channels and experience from several industries to implement creative solutions to various issues. A digital solution to an issue for an automaker might be applied to a financial services company, for example, in a way that is fresh and valuable to customers.
CX partners make it their job to be experts in compliance, talent recruiting, efficiency, and the use of the latest digital technologies to deliver outstanding customer care.
But your organization doesn’t have to lose its IP, headquarters, or even its original staff. CX partners can provide full-service solutions or professional services to bolster the viability of your in-house staff with training, technologies, and customer care best practices.
Deliver experiences your customers expect
Today’s consumers are technological gurus and they expect their experiences to be fast and easy across channels. Findings from SAP’s Australian Digital Experience Report revealed that almost half of customers use around five channels while interacting with brands. Unfortunately, the same study shows that almost 30 percent of those customers are disappointed by these omnichannel experiences.
Poorly implemented customer service technology can be a crushing blow when used by an organization with no experience in the field. I still have nightmares from spending a half hour getting transferred around a telco provider just to change my password.
That’s why it’s essential to partner with a crack shot CX company that understands how to incorporate the look and feel of an ideal customer experience in an omnichannel environment. Instead of being vexed for months on various channel problems, a partner may have seen this issue before and can implement an engaging technology or digital channel that could save countless days of analysis.
I’ve seen partners engage organizations with solution roadmaps that encompass digital services to complement associate daily workflow by containing unnecessary calls and simple interactions with AI capabilities. This frees agents to have more meaningful and emotional moments with customers during complex interactions. Creating the perfect customer service environment means meeting the expectations of customers at every point of the journey.
CX take off
One of TTEC’s proudest partnerships is with a top airline’s customer loyalty scheme. In one instance, frequent fliers were having difficulty with their account PINs during login. The real kicker was when the system rejected the PIN, the customers were led on a long and arduous journey to reclaim their account information, including several security questions and delays in the system. Customer and associate morale took a serious hit, and further research showed that this issue accounted for about 15 percent of call volumes. Something had to be done.
Sampling a similar issue we’ve handled in other industries, we introduced a one-time authentication code to the member’s mobile phone, giving them the power to reset their own PIN. This freed customers and agents from the need to answer multiple security questions, forms, and delays to the resolution. New processes and training were implemented in just two months. As a result, the volume of calls related to PIN reset decreased by 33 percent and first contact resolution went up by 26 per cent.
Enjoy the best of both worlds
If you are experiencing customer service woes by managing your own customer service, there goes the old saying, “Jack of all trades, master of none”. Partnering with a CX expert to complement your industry knowledge with their unique customer service insight can bring out the best in both worlds.
