The customer experience hub – Delivering personalised experiences in contact centres
Gary Bennett, VP UKI/MEA/Northern Europe at Enghouse Interactive
Over the last two years, businesses and people alike have faced significant disruption owing not only to the pandemic, but also supply chain issues, the Suez Canal blockage and the cost of living crisis. Amid ongoing uncertainty, it has become more important than ever for organisations to understand the needs of individuals and ensure their contact centres are able to offer more personalised customer service.
Businesses across the UK need to ensure effective pathways for communication between their contact centres and customers, with data providing the foundation for this. Collating and analysing data will enable contact centres to understand what people want and use this to deliver a personalised service as part of an overall customer experience that supports and reassures in these challenging times.
Historically, many contact centres have been held back from taking this approach due to budget limitations, legacy systems, inflexible proprietary technologies and a reliance on manual processes. At the same time, they must ensure rigorous data protection and security to meet ever-increasing privacy regulations.
However, technological advances are primed to help contact centres overcome these challenges and adopt a more data-led, personalised approach to customer interactions.
Creating a digital experience for the consumer of today
As organisations look to deliver a service that is tailored to the needs of their users, they must ensure that their entire approach is digital by design. Today’s consumers have an expectation for interaction with organisations to increasingly be via digital channels. Consequently, this is something contact centres need to be able to deliver.
People can for example, interact with IVRs and chatbots to obtain the information needed to solve their issue themselves. Up-to-date information and guidance can be provided from the knowledge base in the format they prefer. Individuals can also trigger a call or digital session from the company’s website or ask to be escalated to support staff. The person is in control, building a customer experience that can be tailored to them and their needs.
Going beyond this to create a more personalised service offering requires contact centres have two key elements in place: access to data and close integration between systems. This will ensure that information is shared across departments and channels, rather than being trapped in silos.
Connecting the dots to drive personalised experiences
To gain a single view of the customer and their needs organisations should consider integrating their CRM system with their contact centre solution and quality monitoring platforms. In particular, drawing on intelligence from Voice of the Customer data will help organisations to deliver personalised experiences by enabling them to capture the sentiment of what the customer is saying and tailor their communication and engagement with them accordingly.
Data also needs to be collected and made available across every channel, and must always be up to date, following stringent internal processes that put the customer first.
This combination of technology and best practice will empower organisations to effectively form a customer experience hub which democratises data, provides analytics, and supports management of the customer journey. Fundamentally, it will enable those in the contact centre to obtain a 360-degree view of the customer to ensure it is delivering bespoke support and services that are personalised to their needs.
Gary Bennett, VP UKI/MEA/Northern Europe at Enghouse Interactive
Gary Bennett, VP UKI/MEA/Northern Europe at Enghouse InteractiveEnghouse Interactive is a subsidiary of Enghouse, a Canadian publicly traded company (TSX:ENGH), which provides enterprise software solutions focusing on remote work, visual computing and communications for next-generation software-defined networks. The Company’s two-pronged growth strategy focuses on internal growth and acquisitions, which, to date, have been funded through operating cash flows. The Company is well capitalized, has nominal long-term debt and is organized around two business segments: the Interactive Management Group and the Asset Management Group.
For additional information on Enghouse Interactive view their Company Profile
