Fixing customer service doesn’t begin and end with the contact centre. Nicky Hjerpe at Netcall discusses.
According to Gartner research, 80% of organisations expect to compete on customer experience. However, many fall into the trap of believing the customer journey begins and ends within the contact centre. Whilst this may be the customer’s point of entry, the journey involves multiple customer touch points where it can break down.
Optimising the contact centre is crucial, and advancements in AI-powered customer engagement solutions are making a huge impact in this area. But, delivering a tailored and seamless experience through your customer service agents means little if the experience falters later on. Organisations must meet the expectations set when a customer makes contact, yet a gap between the front-end service and back-end processes often hinders this goal.
The damaging impact of data silos
For organisations aiming to optimise the customer experience (CX), data silos are often the biggest obstacle. If disconnected systems do not offer a 360° view of the customer, other departments and functions only see part of the picture. This lack of integration can result in unmet customer expectations whether it’s a maintenance engineer missing an appointment, or a delayed delivery. When functions operate in silos, issues like engineer availability or supply chain delays may not be effectively communicated to the customer.
This breakdown not only causes dissatisfaction but prevents other departments from mitigating the impact or resetting customer expectations. Missing key customer data isolated in another department can also create roadblocks, leading to unnecessary customer contact.
Bridging the gap
Delivering the kind of customer service that fosters loyalty involves automating processes across the entire organisation, not just in one department. By integrating systems, data and processes, organisations can proactively keep customers informed about orders, cases and key dates, eliminating the need for customers to chase updates and preventing frustration.
So, how can organisations achieve this?
The path to improved customer experience starts with CX teams taking a holistic view and understanding all the data needed to complete the customer journey. They must consider information and processes from every touch point and organise this data to make it actionable – this is where automation and AI become invaluable.
The right tools for the job
Leveraging automation through dedicated contact centre solutions with business-wide integration is essential to overcoming data silos. These tools enable organisations to thoroughly review existing data, but integration is key – contact centre solutions that unify all business processes and data on a single platform are critical for achieving the transparency necessary for customer service success. By creating a unified platform, or case management system, customer service agents, and other key functions can access the right information, at the right time, and in a clear, actionable format. This allows agents to be more productive in both proactive and reactive customer support. Meanwhile, automation within these platforms handles repetitive tasks and communications, saving time, whilst keeping customers informed.
The case for low-code
Case management systems are particularly effective when tailored to the specific industry. With low-code technology, organisations can continually adapt and customise their platform to meet evolving business and customer needs. The user-friendly, drag-and-drop nature of low-code solutions allows for easy creation of custom applications and automated processes, enhancing the customer experience.
As customer needs and expectations change, organisations across all sectors must ensure that disconnected data doesn’t hinder their ability to deliver great customer experience. By leveraging the right tools – supported by low-code technology and seamlessly integrated across the business – organisations can not only meet, but exceed customer expectations, earning their loyalty.
In summary, customer experience shouldn’t begin and end with the contact centre. For true success, it must be a business-wide effort to eliminate data silos, build a transparent view of the customer journey, and create efficient, productive workflows.
Nicky Hjerpe is Head of Product Marketing at Netcall
Over 600 organisations in financial services, insurance, local government and healthcare use Netcall’s Liberty platform to make life easier for the people they serve.
Liberty Converse is the next-generation, AI-powered contact centre solution that redefines how businesses engage with their customers. The cloud-native platform extends its robust contact centre software capabilities to harness the power of intelligent process automation and rapid application development, setting Netcall apart in the competitive landscape.
Liberty Converse is part of Netcall’s Liberty platform which provides cut-through process automation and communications solutions, helping organisations to achieve their business goals faster in a rapidly changing world. Liberty offers user-friendly, AI-driven tools to create business applications that automate processes, streamline workflows and enhance both customer and employee experiences.
For additional information on Netcall view their Company Profile
