Customer experience should be the same way. All consumers need to know is that they’ll have the same simple, natural, consistent and personalized experience when they reach out to a brand. Enterprises, meanwhile, are tasked with managing a complex ecosystem of technologies, processes and people to make it happen. At the end of the day, the experience is all that matters.
“Good” customer experience is about delivering on the obvious without consumers having to think about how it happens. It should be as simple as looking up at the sky. It’s this level of service that drives deep and meaningful relationships that separate top performers from the rest.
Three Core Drivers of Customer Experience
- Natural Connection
Good customer experience is something that should just “happen.” Consumers don’t need to know how or why other than that they are getting the information they need anywhere, anytime on any device with interactions occurring the way they want them to. They should be seamlessly moving between traditional and digital channels, those channels themselves being virtually irrelevant so long as they are fitting for the user in the right moment. Artificial intelligence (AI) is key for creating this level of natural connection. For example:
Smart routing: Match customers with agents based on such things as behavior, personality and commonalities, leveraging AI to look for subtle patterns within billions of historic interactions to predict future best pairings. New research from Nemertes shows that smart routing is the No. 1 application of AI in the contact center, with 73% of organizations currently using or planning to use the technology by 2025. Learn more about AI routing here.
Agent scripting: Nemertes’ research also shows that by 2025, 74% of companies will have live agents only handing complex or specialized interactions. Today’s agents need an intelligent scripting capability that defines call flows (both for inbound and outbound calls) and provides on-screen, step-by-step guidance for expertly navigating customer interactions. This results in conversations, connections and experiences that naturally flow.
- Enterprises Serve Customers, Not “Just” Contact Centers
The contact center is critical, but the brand experience extends to the entire organization: beyond the contact center, to and through the Back Office, and across all departments and lines of business.
This makes an open, modular extensible dashboard critical for delivering rich business insights in real-time from multiple data sources, both in and outside of the enterprise. Ideally, this dashboard would be enabled through a single, unified, browser-based interface to drive faster intelligence and decision-making across the enterprise. It’s this level of insight and support from multiple data sources that helps employees effortlessly improve top measures of customer satisfaction.
- Real-time Insight (Not Data) Drives Right Actions
Organizations need easier integration between communication applications to drive smarter and faster collaboration, information sharing, and decision-making across the enterprise. Doing so minimizes the functional and technology silos that prevent data insights from being harnessed. Here are two tools for consideration:
Advanced chat messaging: Chat is among the top three communication apps expected to be used in 2020, according to Nemertes. An open, rich media chat messaging capability takes things to the next level, enabling faster, easier, real-time communication and collaboration not only between customer service and Back Office functions but consumers as well. Both consumers and employees can attach files or videos directly within messages (i.e. screenshots of confirmation or return information, videos, fact sheets, product guides), with multi-party chat available.
Intelligent workspace: Companies need be able to intelligently manage all communication and collaboration in real-time for every employee leveraging the power of AI, automation, and omni-channel collaboration (Nemertes predicts that in 2020 omnichannel adoption will increase from 31% to 49% and that 69% of successful companies will increase their AI budget). Again, we would see this enabled by a single interface that drives faster collaboration and information sharing to make the customer experience simple, natural and contextual.
Your customers will always care more about the “what” versus the “why.” It’s up to you to figure out how to deliver experiences that matter, and that’s why partners like Avaya exist. Our Business Outcome Workshops, for example, pair enterprises with in-house specialists that analyze their current set-up; review business, technical and financial objectives; and develop a personalized strategy presentation. There’s also our New York Customer Experience Center, which allows you to engage in immersive displays and visual, interactive elements; play with our market-leading solutions based on your specific business scenarios; and enjoy on-demand access to our technology and industry experts.
Once you know what you need to do, the process of delivering “good” customer experience becomes clear. Reach out to learn more.