ChannelVision Magazine

But while these are indisputably compelling at- tributes, research shows that customer experi- ence (CX) trumps all. Findings from consulting firm Walker Infor- mation’s research report, Customers 2020: The Future of B-to-B Customer Experience , rein- force the assertion that customer expectations have evolved to the point that knowledgeable customers now dictate the experience, includ- ing the engagement channels (e.g., mobile, social, personal) they prefer and the criteria necessary to keep them coming back. The contact center remains a pivotal inter- section between companies and customers. And contact center as-a-service (CCaaS) pro- viders can play an integral role in helping their customers meet clients’ demands well into the future by heeding some basic advice. Help your CCaaS clients raise their customer IQ Companies need to know their custom- ers better, a simple yet critical truism for CX. Personalization is key, especially with regard to preferred channels of communication. In fact, 92 percent of the highest performing con- tact centers surveyed in Aberdeen Group’s Cloud Contact Center: Customer-Centricity with Greater Agility & Less Cost reported us- ing customer data and automated workflows to connect the right customer with the right agent through the proper channel. To serve a broader audience, companies must develop intuitive systems that will make the right information accessible throughout the enterprise. Tying contact center interactions to other business data becomes a key require- ment. The challenge is that customer informa- tion is oftentimes segmented throughout the organization, separated by disparate business systems. For example, a company may have separate CRM, accounting, loyalty, sales and service programs that each have information about their customers. A full 96 percent of the customer experience professionals surveyed by Walker Information anticipate an increased demand for customer intelligence for the future, which is closely linked to the growing popularity of big data and analytics. Aberdeen’s May 2017 Contact Center Work- force Optimization: Productive Agents, Happy Customers & Reduced Costs study shows that, on average, agents spend 15 percent of their time seeking relevant information to do their jobs. “This is partially due to agents needing to use three different applications during a typical inter- action. To that end, the best-in-class contact cen- ters are 31 percent more likely to provide agents with access to relevant insights (e.g. account data) on a single screen,” the research firm said. But, without a way to aggregate this data and see the big picture, contact center agents can’t see all this valuable information when they engage with a customer. By Jacki Tessmer Are Cloud Contact Center Clients Ready for the Customer Revolution? O perating expense-based pricing and the inherent flexibility of the software as-a-service (SaaS) model are often cited as the leading factors driving companies to the cloud. at your service: Xaas Channel Vision | January - February, 2018 48