How Can Cloud Contact Centers Enhance Customer Experience?
Marketing Head
I read a post on LinkedIn that spoke about a brand.
They came up with an advertisement for ready-to-cook noodles. They had a pretty compelling marketing campaign that laid out the value proposition concisely, and they also nailed the pricing.
The person who wrote the post loved the post. She went to some quick commerce sites to see if the product was available.
She couldn’t find them there.
She searched for the website with the product’s name.
She came across many outlets with the same name in different cities and countries, but not this noodle.
Then, she searched on Google with the product name and their value proposition.
She was directed to the website, where she found the product. When she tried ordering, she noticed the price was higher than the advertised number.
She still tried to go to the payment stage in the checkout process, thinking that the offer for the advertised price might show up.
She wasn’t lucky.
So, she gave up the idea of buying the noodle.
The learning here is – unless you make yourself omnichannel, you shouldn’t be spending your money on creative advertisements. They only mislead, and the likelihood of someone coming back to you is slim after an experience like this.
Today’s Customer Journey
Customer journeys today are more complex and more omnichannel than ever before. Customers expect seamless and personalized interactions throughout their journey.
Anything short of it won’t cut it.
Using the right technologies is one way of getting it right, and cloud contact center technology are at the center of such transformations.
Cloud contact centers bring together powerful features and functionalities – omnichannel capabilities, scalability & flexibility, real-time analytics, AI-driven insights, intelligent routing, cost efficiency, and security.
Let us look at the customer journey in detail:
| Journey stage | Objective | Cloud contact center integration |
|---|---|---|
| Awareness | Create brand visibility and awareness. | Ensure presence across multiple channels like social, email, chat, phone, and website. Send personalized and timely content to engage prospects. |
| Consideration | Educate and influence customers to choose your product/service. | Track and analyze customer inquiries and browsing behavior to understand preferences. Automated follow-ups and targeted content delivery based on browsing data to guide customers toward making a decision. |
| Purchase | Facilitate a seamless purchase process | Direct customers to the right department. Offer personalized recommendations or assist with transaction issues in real time. |
| Post-purchase | Provide support and build customer loyalty. | Offer knowledge bases and chatbots to help customers resolve post-purchase queries. Offer multiple channels – phone, chat, email, and social media for fast resolution. |
| Loyalty and Advocacy | Foster long-term relationships and drive customer advocacy | Automate follow-ups, loyalty offers, and reminders to keep customers connected. Track customer satisfaction and identify advocates early. |
| Upselling | Increase lifetime value through upselling and cross-selling | Analyze customer data to identify opportunities for upselling or cross-selling. |
Enhancing Customer Experience With Cloud Contact Center Features
Awareness and Consideration Stage
Omnichannel support – cloud contact centers integrate all the channels into a unified system and provide a single view of the customers across all channels and interfaces. It makes the interaction seamless.
With omnichannel, the customers don’t have to repeat themselves, irrespective of the channel they choose to interact. For instance, a customer who starts with the chatbot can seamlessly switch to talking to a human agent without having to repeat themselves.
AI chatbots – handle routine transactional queries easily. For instance, it can provide ready answers to product availability, pricing, demonstration, and pilot requests.
Customers don’t have to wait to interact with an agent as most routine queries are handled by automated chatbots, freeing up the agents to handle complex queries and improving customer’s perception of a business.
Purchase Stage
Real-time analytics and personalization – cloud contact centers can access customer data from CRM systems in real time, which allows agents to personalize interactions.
For instance, if a customer calls after placing an item in the shopping cart, the agent can see this information and guide the customer through the purchasing process.
This creates a frictionless experience, increasing the likelihood of conversion.
Intelligent routing – Call routing helps connect the customers to the most suitable agent using based on their needs or past interactions.
For instance, if the customer had sent an email to seek assistance about a configuration issue, the customer would be directed to the tech support team when they call instead of general support.
This leads to faster resolution and, in turn, to higher satisfaction.
Post-Purchase Stage
Self-service tools – many cloud contact centers come equipped with self-service portals and knowledge bases. This allows customers to search for solutions to their problems independently.
This reduces friction and gives customers the power to solve issues at their convenience.
First contact resolution – With omnichannel capabilities, agents are empowered to resolve issues during the first interaction without needing the customer to repeat themselves across multiple customer touchpoints.
This enhances customer satisfaction, especially when they don’t have to repeat themselves.
Loyalty and Advocacy Stage
Proactive communication – cloud contact centers help you send proactive notifications to customers about product updates, promotions, or service reminders.
For instance, a customer who had an issue with a product may receive a follow-up call or email to ensure the problem was resolved.
This builds trust and shows that the organization cares about its customers even after the issue is resolved.
Customer feedback collection and acting on them – cloud contact centers help gather and analyze customer feedback across multiple channels and help you act on them to improve the customer experience.
By leveraging feedback and acting on it, you can turn potentially negative experiences into opportunities for building stronger customer relationships.
Upselling Stage
AI-driven insights – AI can help analyze a customer’s purchase history, browsing behavior, and previous interactions and offer personalized upsell and cross-sell opportunities.
These data-driven recommendations are personalized and are more likely to result in additional purchases.
I have been associated with my mobile service provider and Internet service provider for more than 20 years now.
Is there a specific reason for it?
When I think about it, the only reason that comes to my mind is that I never had to call up my Internet service provider for anything except perhaps when I wanted to shift my house.
Sometimes, the best service is the one you don’t even notice because it works so seamlessly. It doesn’t really need to have a lot of touchpoints. As they famously say, “No news is always good news.”
The touchpoints will have to be meaningful, and they should contribute to the positive experiences of your customers.
Cloud contact centers, with their features and functionality, ensure great experiences across the entire customer journey.
After all, the customer journey is a continuous process that doesn’t end with a purchase.