Ensuring a seamless customer experience is the ultimate goal of any consumer-facing brand.
Customers usually get frustrated with broken communication lines or generic Interactive Voice Response (IVR) messages. That’s why brands are investing in better artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) capabilities to ensure that customers feel like their issues are being understood.
Data from the Microsoft State of Global Customer Service report suggests that customer service impacts brand choice for more than 95% of customers globally.
There is a significant shift towards effectively capturing the customer experience (CX). This includes gathering data and insights about incoming customer queries, along with essential information about customers’ backgrounds. Brands are leveraging customer data in innovative ways to deliver unique customer journeys. Existing customers need different messages than new leads, and companies use other strategies to deliver awesome customer service.
At the same time, customer expectations continue to climb steadily. Conversations are no longer split between phone and email. Each customer has preferences and needs personalized interaction based on their query. Customers have high expectations across all service channels regardless of which channel they choose. They expect the quality and timeliness of service interactions to be soaring.
More than 60% of customers interact through multiple channels and irrespective of time, place, device, or medium, they expect consistency.'
As a result, organizations are constantly evolving their support models to accommodate this ever-changing landscape. Digital innovators are shifting towards the omnichannel business model rather than the traditional single-channel or multichannel models.
Omnichannel customer contact centers provide a streamlined and data-based approach to customer care. They have the requisite data to make informed decisions. Proper alignment and application of digital tools like video chats and AI-powered virtual agents as part of an omnichannel approach will help you achieve a level of support that will delight your customers.
Here are three important reasons why omnichannel contact centers are the future of better communication:
1. Efficient communication at scale
One of the greatest advantages of an omnichannel approach is the leverage of efficient communications at scale. This means that businesses around the world can have better conversations with customers that are housed under one system. The omnichannel approach also allows for better data integration between multiple communication tools, and support agents can access all relevant information under one system. Businesses worldwide are improving customer experience as a core strategic focus. Brands are developing more efficient AI chatbots to ensure customer communications remain goal-oriented.
A perfect example is KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, which used a chatbot to increase communication efficiencies. It leveraged the power of AI to enable better recommendations, enhance the quality of communication, and enable agents to have better data. The omnichannel chatbot enabled the customer care system to handle 1.4 million customer queries in 10 languages 24 hours a day.
It also saved more than 5 million clicks by automated forms and saw an increase in case volumes by 100%. This meant that chatbots could enable better communication and a rise in customer queries at the same time. For a thriving business, there could be no better news than this. Omnichannel customer care management is the way to go for the foreseeable future.
2. Automating communication for better results
Automation in communication can truly be explored when companies have an omnichannel business model. This is because the agent will receive a full breakdown of customer information, along with the query they wish to resolve.
Moreover, some omnichannel customer service solutions, like ThinkOwl, have great AI-enabled features, like auto-routing customer cases to the agent with the right skills.
Additionally, as automation saves time and cost, filtering out simple-to-answer queries has additional benefits. ThinkOwl has pre-defined smart responses or message templates that agents can send to customers looking for an instant first response. This enhances the quality of the experience offered and saves the agent's time.
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Ultimately, having an omnichannel contact center helps customers reach an agent faster. There is little to no need for extended routing, and all the information is in one system. The agents can be empowered to resolve queries as they have all the necessary information under a single dashboard. The future is moving towards omnichannel, with a stronger focus on automating conversations to create better resource management.
3. A data-based approach to customer experience
The key to better communication is having a robust and comprehensive customer journey. An omnichannel setup is essential to ensure that the entire customer communication journey is mapped under one dashboard. This increases transparency in the system and allows companies to make better CX decisions. They can find weak spots in current communication and enhance the areas that need more input. Transparency is also important when launching new products, issuing new lines of service, etc. It brings an additional layer of insight into strategic communications.
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Research from Forrester shows that companies that lead in CX outperform others in the S&P 500 index by 80%. They have a higher market share, and their customers are seven times more likely to purchase more from them. Better CX has also been shown to lead to better word-of-mouth marketing, which enhances the organic appeal of the brand.
When companies adopt a data-based approach to CX, they can do so via an omnichannel call center. This gives them enough insights and data to improve communication with customers over various channels.
The bottom line
In today’s on-demand digital world, businesses must understand the entire customer journey and apply the right technology at the right time to boost customer engagement. The omnichannel approach to customer service provides convenience and accessibility for customers to interact over their preferred channels.
The digital age calls for change. Consistent, proactive efforts to build omnichannel contact centers and deliver personalized services will help organizations maintain good relationships with their customers.
ThinkOwl has all the features your business needs to deliver outstanding support and an unmatched experience to your customers. To explore the various intelligent AI-powered functionalities of ThinkOwl, sign up for a 30-day free trial.