Organizations today recognize contact centers as foundational to improving the customer experience (CX), driving customer retention and gaining an advantage, all of which are critical for business success, according to a recently released Medallia Institute.
The study, Secrets Behind a Successful Customer Experience Program, found that more C-suite and CX leaders focus on the contact center to increase organizational efficiency and to improve the broader customer experience.
According to the study, companies that are CX leaders are more likely to prioritize:
- Improving the quality of customer support experiences, by 2.1 times
- Improving consistency of customer support experiences, by 2.3 times
- Creating frictionless cross-channel experiences, by 2.5 times
The potential return on investment in the customer service experience as part of a broader CX strategy is sizable. Medallia Institute’s study finds that CX leaders are 26 times more likely than laggards to experience year-over-year revenue growth of 20 percent and are 2.8 times more likely to meet their financial targets.
The Medallia Institute’s study was published around the same time as Zendesk’s CX Trends 2023: The Rise of Immersive Experiences report. The Zendesk report spends a great amount of time focusing on artificial intelligence, conversational intelligence and chatbots. This seems to be contrary to Medallia’s finding that consumers want to interact with human contact center agents — not bots. And more than that, they expect customer support employees to be empathetic.
People who need people
The Medallia Institute report states, “Being able to communicate with a human (not a bot) is the No. 1 factor that influences which customer support channel consumers use.”
Timing of the two studies prompted an interview with Fusion Connect’s Sr. VP of Operations Rod Brownridge (right), who explained why a good customer experience is so important and offered steps a remote worker should take to keep CX top of mind when dealing with
calls.
“Customers reach out to our contact centers because they need something fixed,” Brownridge said.
Therefore, the contact center employees should want to make sure each customer who calls feels valued and heard, which requires the agent stay focused on the customer and stay present during the call.
“A good customer experience will lead to greater trust over time and a lasting impression,” Brownridge said. “To achieve this, employees should be willing to prioritize interactions with customers, quickly diagnose problems, show empathy and have an engaging personality.”
To do this, Brownridge said remote workers should take clear and extensive notes that can be shared with other team members through collaboration tools, such as Microsoft Teams. This helps to ensure a clear understanding of who the customer is, why they are calling, what problems need to be solved and what issues have been resolved.
“Building a culture of collaboration is essential, and that begins with setting goals and incentives that reinforce real-time collective problem-solving and information sharing,” Brownridge said. “Leaders should foster a culture where employees are incentivized, financially and emotionally, to care for their coworkers, even if they don’t see that person on a day-to-day basis.
“Collaboration tools that allow employees to easily share information in chats, wikis and virtual huddles, help facilitate teamwork and connection across a distributed workforce,” he continued. All-hands meetings or huddles are among the effective ways to bring together employees and provide more consistent feedback and connection throughout the team, which leads to better understanding to create the positive customer experience the company wants.
“Active listening and clear communications are key to ensuring a great customer experience, and a variety of training programs and best practice sharing will help strengthen any agent’s skills,” Brownridge said.
Tools of the trade
When evaluating which apps or software to use, Brownridge’s advice is to look for a tool that tracks workflows so you can identify best practices easily and share them across the entire team.
“This is critical because today’s environment is constantly evolving – with this type of tool, you can tap into what your best people do and replicate that with the other members of your workforce quickly,” Brownridge said.
He explained, “When you’re able to unlock best practices from across your team, you are empowered to set more meaningful goals that deliver a better customer experience. Given the dynamic environment, goal setting can be more specific and agile.”
Generally, When customer service issues arise, most customers aren’t willing to spend more than five to 10 minutes looking for information online or waiting on hold, according to the Medallia study. That’s why it’s important to find the right business apps or project management software.
The research also found most consumers want contact center agents to know about their customer service interactions and transaction histories. They want the contact center representatives to take the time to understand why they’re reaching out to customer support, and to find personalized customer support solutions that meet their individual needs.
According to Brownridge, company leaders in a distributed workforce may want to “over-communicate” about their key performance indicators and “proactively engage” with employees about what success looks like for their teams.
“When selecting apps or software to aid in this, you’ll want to select one that is nimble and can adjust as your strategy evolves,” he said.
Real voices trump AI
Despite the use of AI, machine learning and sometimes over-active chatbots, Medallia’s research pointed out the customer still prefers talking to real humans. This means the contact center agent should be monitoring those calls to jump in and help, if necessary.
“This comes down to the speed of answering the customer’s questions,” Brownridge explained. “Customers should never have to repeat themselves during an interaction. If the AI or ML responses are asking for customers to repeat themselves continuously, the contact center agent should quickly intervene and show an urgency to help solve the problem.
“And when a conversation is transferred, the customer should not have to rehash the same information previously provided,” he added.
Medallia’s study pointed out that “getting instant responses and problems resolved in real time are two of the top three factors consumers care about the most when deciding which customer support channel to use.”
Immersive customer experience
Zendesk’s study, however, states that as we move into the year, new perspectives are emerging, and this is a time for businesses to take stock and make significant changes.
“There’s no doubt now that customers are firmly in control, and they’ve made it clear: They want immersive customer experiences, and they’re not willing to wait for companies to gradually figure this out,” the report states. “And as we’ve seen, businesses that recognized this massive and exciting shift — and made significant investments in response — have experienced tangible results: higher CSAT scores and demonstrable ROI.”
When customers say they want conversational experiences, they’re not talking in generalities. They know exactly what those experiences should look like, and it all starts with one of the most basic elements of good customer service: receiving assistance immediately.
Whether that’s via an AI-powered bot or a real human agent is of little importance, and here’s where we get to the conversational part: those interactions must feel natural, friendly and personal.
And as those conversations unfold, consumers expect anyone they interact with at the company to have full context of their purchase history, previous interactions, and so on. So, if a customer decides to stop an interaction and resume it later, they want a new support rep to be able to pick up the conversation seamlessly.
Brownridge recognized the split between person-to-person and person-to-a substitute. To him, the basic rules still apply.
“As technology evolves, companies will be better positioned to provide a more seamless omnichannel experience allowing customers to easily interact across their preferred channels,” Brownridge said. “Regardless of the specific technology used, the goal is to offer a personalized customer experience focused on listening to the customer’s needs and quickly resolving their question or inquiry.
“Continuous improvement is critical to staying ahead of customer trends; it’s about listening to customer needs and requests in real-time and refining your strategy to be responsive,” he said.
Consumer convenience
If there’s a theme connecting the studies and Brownridge’s views, it’s convenience. For example, let’s say a customer has an issue with a company’s online cart. Consumers want assistance on that page. They expect businesses to resolve their issues where they are.
According to Zendesk’s study, consumers have begun to ignore the separation between physical and digital experiences, which will pose a challenge to businesses that operate brick-and-mortar locations as well as online portals.
The Zendesk study states the customer immersive experience is a “compelling new territory” that stems from what customers demand: natural, fluid interactions.
These can include chatbots that mimic real human beings to conversational experiences where customers can begin an interaction on one channel and seamlessly switch to another. Zendesk reports that immersive CX boils down to the simple idea that people want to be seen, heard and treated as a highly valued customer. By doing this, businesses can strengthen customer relationships.
In its study, Zendesk reports that business leaders clearly understand how providing an excellent customer experience drives revenue, and many feel optimistic about their company’s future. Zendesk’s research found that 81 percent of these leaders see customer experience and support as growing priorities during the next year.
Increased investments, ROI
The increased investments in CX haven’t gone unnoticed by consumers. According to the Zendesk report, consumers increasingly are used to and have become comfortable with AI, CAI and bots. Of those consumers who interact with customer service bots on a regular basis, 72 percent point toward noticeable improvements in quality. Those same consumers overwhelmingly state that bots perform well when answering simple inquiries, respond faster than human agents, and can be relied upon to provide accurate, helpful information.
However, as consumers enjoy richer experiences with bots, their expectations rise. The report states that 69 percent of consumers who seek support find themselves asking bots a wider range of questions. Still, 78 percent of these callers still end up requesting to connect with a human agent.
However, Zendesk points out that a growing realization is emerging that meeting consumers’ expectations requires a more concerted effort. Predictably, some of the trouble lies in logistics.
For example, 59 percent point to siloed data. Combined with a lack of tools and expertise, many companies find their vision for immersive CX that’s powered by AI remains elusive. That said, a solid 72 percent of business leaders say that expanding AI across the customer experience will be a priority this year.
The Zendesk report concludes the emphasis on AI in the customer experience likely will be focused on three major advances:
- Measuring sentiment analysis for routing
- Improving agent workflows (routing, prioritizing, and solving requests)
- Intercepting requests that would go to sales or customer service representatives.
To get there, 67 percent of leaders expect to boost AI/bots spending, with nearly half of the respondents committing to as much as a 25 percent increase. Still, regardless of what they plan to spend, they also want to ensure a return on their investment.
“Customer reviews and feedback are key to measuring ROI, coupled with CSAT [customer satisfaction] and NPS [net promoter score] scores,” Brownridge said. “One area we’re focused on is eliminating repeat calls to ensure the customer’s request is resolved the first time. Creating ROI starts with identifying your biggest customer pain points and building a solution quickly – often, those solutions will come from your team and their insights on the frontline.”
