This is a guest post by Eric Ouisse, Co-Founder of ZIWO.
As someone who has watched the call center world for the last twenty years, I've seen it change a lot. As companies shifted from product-centric to customer-centric models, the contact center became increasingly about the customer. A call center's customer experience relies on being prepared. This means having all the necessary resources available to deliver excellent service. But how does that happen?
Here are three key pillars that significantly affect the contact center landscape, regardless of industry, business size, or revenue.
1. Call center agent empowerment
CX culture starts with employees! Your employees are your first customers. Giving agents more control over their tasks leads to a better customer experience.
Imagine an agent who needs to ask their team leader or supervisor before taking every action. To complete their tasks, other agents must check the standard operating procedures. This leads to agent burnout and high turnover rates.
The solution is simple: A contact center platform with strong CRM integration helps all your employees. Both back-office and front-office staff can use the same interface.
You can also automate your workflows. Workflows can be rule-based and triggered by a specific action. Most RPA (robotic process automation) tools use this method. These tools create workflows that can handle many tasks from one action, helping contact center agents deliver the correct value at the right moment to create a satisfying customer experience.
2. Proactive customer engagement
No community can exchange values without interaction. By understanding the needs and evolving demands throughout the customer journey, the relationship between customers and businesses lasts longer.
As time goes on, your understanding will deepen. You'll start to predict what your customer will do next. This helps you identify new business needs. Proactive customer engagement is the way forward!
A strong CX culture doesn't wait for a customer's action to react. It provides materials, offers products, and teaches customers about new opportunities. This is the right time for them to gain new, valuable experiences.
Looking at patterns can help you guide your customers to their future choices based on their journey with workflows.
While predefined rules exist, personalities vary. This is where cognitive workflow automation solutions come in. These tools use machine learning or AI algorithms to learn and adapt without strict human rules.
3. Data-driven CX culture
You don't need to wait for the end of the quarter, month, or week to discover that you haven't achieved your target.
Real-time visibility lets your supervisors and team leaders know how your call center is performing. Determine metrics that prove the center’s productivity:
How many agents are currently in a call?
How many current customers are waiting in a queue?
What’s the average inbound handling time?
What's the number of total abandoned calls?
What’s the average abandon time?
No matter what key performance indicators you have in your call center, you need a real-time dashboard. This dashboard helps you track every important value as it happens, helping you make decisions based on data. You won't waste time on every weak point before it turns into a costly problem.
This makes agents more responsible for their tasks. They put more effort into each deal to reach business goals and earn their commission and KPI benefits.
A strong CX culture means addressing issues at every customer touchpoint, from awareness to loyalty. A call center solution is easy to customize and is one of the best tools to build that culture. If you're a Zoho CRM user looking to enhance CX, check out ZIWO for Zoho CRM. This integration unifies your sales, marketing, and customer support activities while streamlining processes, policies, and people on a single platform.
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