The pandemic accelerated digital adoption of messaging, web and cloud at light speed, and in doing so contact centres have been at the front-line of large volumes of people in need for support, comfort and information.
Fostering these digital-first experiences for customers will take innovation, people and technology will need to be optimised to handle unexpected volatility and volume surge. To help solve this challenge, VoiceFoundry, a TTEC Digital company, partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to explore how contact centre leaders can execute effective digital experiences customers expect.
Here are 3 key takeaways from their on-demand webinar:
1. Rethink the traditional contact centre
The inability to scale during fluctuating volumes, little to no connected data and increased diversity of needs is acutely affecting customers who need quick and powerful support programs in an uncertain environment.
To meet the need for quality service matched with compassion, Dennis Lauth, principal business development lead for AWS Healthcare & Life Science, recommended that leaders rework their legacy systems to serve large numbers of customers in need.
Lauth listed four essential AWS cloud-based services to dynamically serve customers with personalisation:
- Skill-based contact routing: Maximise the efficiency of agent and customer conversations with the ability to connect those in need to the appropriate service. Integrate chatbots to triage the needs of customers, which allows agents to focus on problems that demand empathy.
- Voice and chat recording: Record conversations to monitor and approve the quality each time an agent chats with a customer. The recorded content can then be turned into actionable and trainable insights for each channel.
- Real-time and historical analytics: Each channel should be analysed by machine learning capabilities to understand trends, cadences and preferences to help agents understand their audiences at an individual and whole level.
- High-quality voice capability: Agents are now spread throughout the world, so invest in headsets to ensure seamless online interactions are not broken by voice inconsistencies.
The traditional contact centre model is facing a reckoning. All the technology that was introduced to make conversations easier and more efficient will now be put to the test.
2. Create meaningful interactions
“Good customer service is directly correlated to good agent preparedness”, said John Marino, CEO of VoiceFoundry.
A main blocker for agents is the disparate amount of customer information coming in across different channels. The shift between voice to messaging and vice versa complicates the traditional conversation between agents and callers.
Marino discussed the importance of deploying tools like Amazon Connect customer profiles to create a unified and personalised picture of a customer by gathering customer information from various sources such as contact and order history. By doing so the agent can then pull up relevant details about the caller to tailor the interaction to their direct needs.
The growing omnichannel environment has helped connect the world during the pandemic, discovering and gathering information on why and how the customers use these channels is key to serving them best.
3. Think big, start small
Innovation should not be introduced in one wave; the pandemic is a testament to the effects of immediate change at once. Instead, create dialogue among smaller groups of agents on the new products and technologies being implemented into their workday.
Technology cannot be introduced for technology’s sake. Automation and digitilisation can be applied to give agents an advantage with every conversation. Walking a department through the new technology at their disposal is an essential part of discussing how their job is enhanced, not replaced.
