July 20, 2017
In today’s business climate, customers expect multiple ways in which to contact a company. Whether through email, by phone, chat, social media, and so on, the demand is high on the contact center, but it doesn’t stop there. Contact centers must fuse these different channels of communication into a seamless customer experience.
If the customer had been chatting with an agent through the company website, that dialogue should be able to carry over into a voice conversation without the customer having to repeat everything they just said in the chat window. It’s called omnichannel, and though the concept may be simple, integrating multiple technologies together can be a significant challenge. Here are some omnichannel strategy best practices to help prepare your contact center for success.
Best Practices for the Omnichannel Contact Center
- Mobile Is Key: The world is now on mobile phones. It’s where we answer emails, browse the web, make calls, and so on. If you’re preparing an omnichannel experience, mobile should be front and center in your strategy. Build a mobile website, launch a mobile app, and ensure that phone numbers on your mobile site link directly to a call. If you can make something simpler or easier in a mobile experience, do it.
- Build a Social Media Team: Social media is now a crucial part of modern business, and if your business intends to build a mobile platform and community, you need to be prepared to attend to that community. People want rapid responses to their mobile inquiries, so there must be a professional or a team of professionals dedicated to managing your social community and responding to questions or issues.
- Self Service: Texting taught the business world that if people do not have to speak over the phone, they usually won’t. Extending that dynamic further, if a customer does not need to speak to an agent, why force them to? Provide self-service options through either interactive voice recordings (IVRs) or inquiry forms wherever possible.
- Live Chat: Websites should be designed to be as clear and efficient as possible, but nevertheless, website visitors are sure to have questions, find confusion, or even move further down the sales funnel. An excellent way to meet this need is though web chatting features on your website. A quick question can easily turn into a sale after a trained agent engages the customer one on one. Furthermore, there’s an element of immediate gratification that is very beneficial for the customer experience. In mere moments, a customer can pose a question, receive an answer, and even have a brief follow-up conversation to elaborate on the point.
- A Good CRM to Bring It all Together: So far, we have mostly covered the different channels, but you need a good CRM that will bring everything together. When a customer calls, you need a repository of data and customer information to provide the best omnichannel experience, and that can be achieved through a CRM or contact center platform.
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Mindsight, a Chicago IT services provider, is an extension of your team. Our culture is built on transparency and trust, and our team is made up of extraordinary people – the kinds of people you would hire. We have one of the largest expert-level engineering teams delivering the full spectrum of IT services and solutions, from cloud to infrastructure, collaboration to contact center. Our highly-certified engineers and process-oriented excellence have certainly been key to our success. But what really sets us apart is our straightforward and honest approach to every conversation, whether it is for an emerging business or global enterprise. Our customers rely on our thought leadership, responsiveness, and dedication to solving their toughest technology challenges.
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