- \n
- Build aspiration and purpose<\/li>\n
- Transform the business<\/li>\n
- Enable the transformation<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Building block number one: build aspiration and purpose<\/h2>\n
Broadly defined as \u201cbuilding aspiration and purpose,” the first building block includes the following points:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Develop customer-centric vision and aspiration<\/li>\n
- Establish a link to value<\/li>\n
- Translate into a roadmap<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
A customer experience aspiration is the customer experience goal you aim to achieve in your contact center. Ideally, the customer experience should be smooth, enjoyable, and make the customer want to continue buying from you. The article\u2019s authors point out that many firms develop a generic customer experience aspiration, or they aspire to a customer experience that can\u2019t be measured or tracked. There has to be a clear link between the customer experience aspiration and value that can be tracked and measured. Next, that aspiration must translate into a roadmap of actionable steps.<\/p>\n
\n\n\t\t\t\t\t![\"Give](\"\/us\/en\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/RingCentral-Office-images_2.png\")
\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\tCustomer service aspirations and the cloud contact center<\/h2>\n
Your contact center is the first place to which customers turn, so it should be the center of your customer service aspirations. The technology you choose to provide the foundation for your customer service aspirations can help in two ways:<\/p>\n
- \n
- By creating an excellent customer experience<\/li>\n
- By tracking and measuring how you\u2019re living up to those aspirations<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cloud contact center software<\/a> allows you to offer an omnichannel customer experience<\/a>, which means that you offer a number of channels through which your customers can reach you. According to Forrester, companies with the strongest omnichannel customer engagement strategies see a 10% year-over-year growth<\/a>, a 10% increase in average order value, and a 25% increase in close rates.<\/p>\n
Part of building that aspiration is recognizing how customers want to reach you. Gartner has projected that the majority of customer interactions will eventually involve digital channels such as messaging apps and chatbots \u2014 while voice’s share of interactions continues to decline. A customer experience aspiration that doesn’t account for this channel shift will be outdated before it’s implemented.<\/p>\n
A cloud contact center features built-in analytics solutions<\/a> that measure factors such as customer satisfaction, average handle time, and first call resolution. Market-leading cloud contact center solutions allow you to customize metrics, so you measure what\u2019s most important to your company.<\/p>\n
Building block number two: transform the business<\/h2>\n
McKinsey analysts point out that transforming the customer experience can\u2019t be treated as a run-of-the-mill business project; rather, business leaders must create agile, cross-functional teams that have deep technology expertise and have experience in design thinking and continuous improvement.<\/p>\n
These cross-functional teams research what customers need and how best to deliver that. The article authors emphasize that they develop innovative concepts and prototypes to address pain points, and they prioritize meaningful metrics. Once these products and services are developed, the team scales them across the business, ensuring that they\u2019re integrated into the corporate technology stack.<\/p>\n
Business transformation and the cloud contact center<\/h2>\n
A cloud contact center<\/a> is an essential tool in the business transformation arsenal because it enables the type of deep-rooted changes that the McKinsey analysts recommend.<\/p>\n
A cloud contact center enables an omnichannel customer experience, which transforms the entire customer experience. In addition, cloud contact center software can have a positive, even transformative impact, on the rest of the business.<\/p>\n
![\"Cloud](\"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/img\/F7834F64-1BFA-11EB-915B-417ABF2747BA\/bigstock-Business-People-Wearing-Headse-377539729_600x.jpg\")
<\/p>\nCloud contact center software allows for greater collaboration<\/a> between contact center agents and other business departments. For a start, cloud contact center technology provides an internal directory with presence indicators, so if an agent needs to reach a company expert to answer a question, he or she can. Second, agents can hold video conferences or chat with members of other departments, and it\u2019s also easy to share files between agents and team members from across the company. This approach breaks down the costly and wasteful customer experience siloes that cost US companies $537 billion<\/a> annually.<\/p>\n
UCaaS and CCaaS: closing the gap between agents and experts<\/h2>\n
One of the most effective ways to break down those silos is by integrating unified communications (UCaaS) with your contact center platform (CCaaS). When these systems operate separately, agents are forced to leave the customer conversation to find answers \u2014 research has found that 70% of agents do exactly this, increasing wait times and lengthening time to resolution.<\/p>\n
When UCaaS and CCaaS operate as a single platform, agents can reach internal experts without dropping the customer interaction. The result is a faster, more consistent experience for the customer \u2014 and a less fragmented one for the agent.<\/p>\n
Building block number three: enable the transformation<\/h2>\n
Enabling transformation means that leaders who have successfully implemented new, positive customer experiences continue that momentum by building new capabilities. Those capabilities include:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Customer-centric mindsets<\/li>\n
- An integrated technology stack<\/li>\n
- An agile operating model and governance structure<\/li>\n
- A performance management system built on predictive analytics and machine learning<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
How a cloud contact center enables customer experience transformation<\/h2>\n
A cloud contact center that offers an omnichannel customer experience is a vital part of enabling the broader customer experience transformation about which the McKinsey analysts wrote. A cloud contact center does that by:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Giving the customer options to reach your company<\/li>\n
- Making internal and external collaboration easy<\/li>\n
- Building agility into the contact center architecture<\/li>\n
- Building in analytics for improved performance management<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Giving the customer options to reach your company\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n
As mentioned earlier, the omnichannel customer experience is essential to creating a customer experience that satisfies overall. The omnichannel customer experience means that the customer has the freedom to contact you on the channel of their choice. Nine out of ten<\/a> customers want an omnichannel customer experience, according to UC Today, and a cloud contact center can give that to them.<\/p>\n
Making internal and external collaboration easy<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n
Cloud contact centers support internal and external chats, video conferences, and voice calls, so teams can share information across the organization as well as with customers. Research shows that collaboration creates a better customer experience: organizations that don\u2019t put the customer experience in silos are nearly twice as likely<\/a> to exceed their business goal by a significant margin, according to eConsultancy.<\/p>\n
Building agility into the contact center architecture\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n
Part of ensuring an excellent customer experience is being able to quickly shift resources so that you can satisfy the customer. You might have an agent sitting idle \u2013 that person can move from answering chats to talking with customers on the phone.<\/p>\n
Companies that embrace agility see a 71% increase<\/a> in the ability to manage changing priorities as well as a 61% increase in team productivity.<\/p>\n
AI enhances agents \u2014 it doesn’t replace them<\/h3>\n
Enabling transformation also means equipping agents with AI that works alongside them rather than around them. The most effective implementations treat AI not as a replacement for human judgment, but as a force multiplier \u2014 handling routing, surfacing relevant knowledge base articles, and collecting customer information before the agent engages.<\/p>\n
That frees agents to focus on what they do best: resolving complex issues, building rapport, and identifying opportunities that automation alone can’t capture. Cloud contact center platforms with built-in AI capabilities make this kind of human-machine collaboration practical at scale.<\/p>\n
Building in analytics for improved performance management\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n