The world we knew has evolved, and with that comes a host of opportunities for the contact centre and the traditional customer journey. We can thank the pandemic for a large proportion of this. However, the desire for change has been bubbling below the surface for some time; Covid-19 simply accelerated our circumstances.
The shift in priorities and needs has allowed us to focus on the purpose of centralised working, forcing us to adapt our relationship with the typical bricks and mortar contact centre and the agency efficiency mindset it represents. The contact centre of the future – and dare I say it, today – needs to push towards revolutionising the customer experience.
It’s fair to say that it is no longer okay to just sell/provide a service, you need to build trust and reliability with your customers, viewing them more as partners. SMEs can have an excellent solution, but if they don’t have access to a partner willing to support them and help drive that with them, it’ll be difficult.
There should be the right mix of technology, support and security in play to create a mutually beneficial relationship. This means SMEs can build out their IT infrastructure in a thoughtful and tailored manner, allowing an advantageous approach for everyone. But how do we build this environment?
A better system
To reach complete success, we need to think about ‘what’ and ‘how’, and focus less on ‘why’. The whys are simple: today’s contact centre shouldn’t be a one-stop-shop for complaining about faulty products or other momentary bugbear.
It should be a hub of post-sales nurturing from the moment of purchase onwards, built to deliver total customer satisfaction and multiple touch-points as needed, bolstered by an organisation equipped to facilitate such a journey.
Technologies must be carefully considered. Customers must be able to choose from a range of options to connect, and it all needs to be supported by effective AI solutions.
Before you decide how you move forward, you need to take a look at some of the potential blockages to your future planning. For some it’ll be as simple as tightening a few bolts, whilst others will have to completely rebuild the foundations.
Whichever it may be, the results will be the same. There are a collection of common obstructions that you may come across whilst trying to rebuild, but it’s imperative that you work on them in order to enable your contact centre to flourish past infancy.
Remote and hybrid working is the way forward for many businesses. But remote working comes with challenges, one being the issues it causes for legacy infrastructure.
Traditional systems weren’t engineered to support a remote workforce; even the most considered business continuity strategy envisioned agents moving to a collective backup location, or the workload moved to a backup contact centre - neither of which was possible in the face of the pandemic.
So how do you move forward from this? The contact centre of tomorrow will have to route usual call traffic out to a remote, sometimes scattered workforce.
Providing workers and partners with reassurance that they are receiving the best possible care and attention is paramount to continued success. Before Covid, the contact centre was abuzz with clever systems and clever people able to utilise those systems to the best of their abilities.
It was simple to identify who knew what, and where to turn for immediate support. When those agents are home-based, that falls apart. They may not even have continuous or unfettered access to all of the channels and systems that they rely on - and to your partners, it shows. In a time of brand disloyalty, it’s important that your partners know you’re doing everything you can to evolve your contact centre by embracing the tools of the modern world.
Evolution is key
In essence, contact centres are in need of a fresh pair of legs. Evolution is a part of life, and in order to move to the next stage, we need to make sure we’re achieving our best.
If you continue to do what you always did, you’ll get what you always got, and in the face of turbulent times for the contact centre industry ‘what you always did’ just won’t cut it. To put your best foot forward and move with the times, you must hit pause on your current approach and sit with what needs to evolve.
Yes, this entire process is daunting, and in the short term may feel like a continuous losing battle, but strategically analysing room for improvement will do your organisation wonders in the long run. SMEs, channel partners, end users and the like need to see the process as an opportunity. Taking a forensic deep dive into how you operate can help move from a reactive contact centre to a proactive one.
The contact centre of the future is not out of reach. If you’re ready to embrace what a nimble, digital-first contact centre could mean for your business, there’s no time like the present.