Exploring the customer-centric contact center

The concept of the customer experience has grown in importance over the past decade. Yet, other trends have arisen that can affect the customer experience, such as the development of the remote contact center. How is it possible to create a customer-centric contact center when employees and supervisors aren’t in the same physical location?

In this article, we’ll explore how it’s possible to ensure a positive customer experience by building your contact center on a customer-centric foundation.

What does a positive customer experience look like at a contact center?

To understand how to build a customer-centric contact center, let’s first illustrate what a positive customer experience at a contact center looks like.

Laura recently purchased a digital frame to display pictures of her family. She uploaded the pictures to the frame, yet the frame won’t display two of the eight photos she’s chosen. Laura calls the contact center.

After a ring or two, an automated message informs Laura agents are helping other customers, and she has a few options:

To turn to the self-service options on the company’s website
To start a chat on Facebook with a customer service representative
To leave her number with the automated system so she can get a call back as soon as an agent is available

Laura decides to leave her phone number so an agent can call her back. After 45 minutes, an agent calls her, and he’s able to solve the problem quickly. Laura doesn’t realize that the agent works from home, but it wouldn’t make much of a difference to her; all she cares about is that her issue received the attention and resolution it deserved.

😃 😠 😣 Your first chance to make a good impression is your only chance to make an impression 😃 😠 😣

1/3 of your customers will leave after just one bad experience! See how RingCentral contact center helped these 6 companies better serve their customers

What is the foundation of a customer-centric, remote contact center?

How was the contact center in the example above able to offer Laura a positive customer experience? The answer lies in the foundation of a customer-centric remote contact center: the right contact center software.

The right contact center software:

Runs in the cloud, so it provides agents and supervisors greater flexibility to work from where they want and ensures business continuity
Provides agents the tools they need to deliver excellent support
Features intelligent routing to connect customers to the right agents with the correct skill set to handle their question or issue
Features omnichannel support so that customers can connect with the business on the channel of their choice
Allows customers to utilize self-service capabilities such as knowledge bases and chat bots
Provides analytics in both historical reports and real-time to contact center supervisors and admins insights into agent performance and customer satisfaction

The right contact center software runs in the cloud

Contact center software that empowers a positive customer experience runs in the cloud. There are two benefits you gain from this:

Business continuity
Flexibility for supervisors and agents

In the spring of 2020, the global pandemic shuttered businesses across the world. Contact centers weren’t immune. At the same time, there was a greater demand for contact centers than ever – volume increased 20% across the industry (with airlines and hotels seeing the highest spikes). Cloud contact centers enabled agents and supervisors to continue working safely.

Even when there isn’t a public healthcare crisis raging, cloud contact centers make sense; they provide flexibility for supervisors and agents. Research shows that on-premises agents have a retention rate of 25%, while agents who work from home have an 80% retention rate.

The right contact center software gives agents the tools they need to support customers

Cloud contact center software boosts collaboration between agents and their colleagues in other departments. The traditional call center environment wasn’t set up with collaboration in mind; agents were in a silo, and it was difficult to get help from other departments.

With cloud contact center software, agents can easily connect to their colleagues. This software has a built-in internal directory with a presence indicator, so agents can reach out to those at the company with the right answers.

Intelligent routing sends customers to the right agents

Research from CITE revealed that 41% of customers stopped using a service or product after they were passed from rep to rep during an interaction.

Intelligent routing ensures that customers interact with an agent that can help them. They won’t get passed off from agent to agent, which streamlines the customer experience.

The right contact center software features omnichannel support

On any given day, 98% of customers jump between channels and devices throughout a 24-hour period. They might start a conversation in a chat, then finish it through an email or video conference. Today’s customers want the flexibility to connect with brands through their preferred channel.

Cloud contact center software supports multiple channels, so customers can reach out to you how they want, when they want.

The right contact center software provides self-service capabilities for customers

Over 60% of American consumers prefer an automated self-service option to resolve simple issues. Another 33% believe that chatbots are “very effective” in dealing with customer service issues.

Why do customers like using self-service methods to solve their problems? It allows them to solve their problems faster – they’re not waiting on hold to get answers. Cloud contact center software enables contact centers to provide self-service capabilities such as knowledge bases or chatbots.

The right contact center software features built-in analytics to monitor agent performance

When your contact center agents don’t work in the same physical location as you do, it’s challenging to supervise them. You can’t walk the contact center floor or sit in your office for a one-on-one. That’s where cloud contact center software comes in.

Cloud contact center software features built-in analytics so supervisors can monitor agent performance. They can:

Record screen and voice interactions for review later
Analyze speech and text interactions for signs
Silently monitor calls (and offer whisper coaching or enter the call if necessary)
Automate sending out customer satisfaction surveys, so customers can provide actionable feedback on how to improve the contact center

Comprehensive analytics give remote supervisors the insight they need to improve contact center operations (and by extension, the customer experience).

RingCentral’s cloud contact center software helps you enhance the customer experience

RingCentral’s market-leading cloud contact center software helps you enhance the customer experience by empowering agents, supervisors, and even customers with the right tools. To learn more about how you can make your customer experience better, read our eBook: The Future of Customer Experience.