The COVID-19 pandemic we have faced has not only speed up the digital transformation process, making everything ‘online or digitalized’, but has also changed consumer behavior or customer transactions.
Customers making a transaction these days don’t just buy a product. They are also looking for an experience, and expect the process to develop constantly. This creates a challenge for companies to understand customer preferences and maintain trust, which leads to customer loyalty.
Currently, customers tend to move to competitors easily if they feel their experience of the products/services they use is unsatisfactory. Quoted from (Oracle, CX Research), 93% of customers will immediately respond negatively to the customer experience they feel is unsatisfactory. Furthermore, 64% of these customers expect to be replied to as fast as possible.
These facts are a challenge for customer-oriented businesses. As a result, contact centers are a required service to act as a link between customers and companies. A contact center forms the foundation for any company that hopes to develop its business and increase sales.
As we know,contact centers have experienced extraordinary change and continually adapt to changing customer needs to provide the best customer experience.
Customer satisfaction focuses on how companies can measure customer expectations. The higher the level of customer satisfaction, the greater the number of customers who will stay loyal and increase their purchasing transactions from that company. This is an important element for companies hoping to stand out from their competitors.
The Covid-19 pandemic has forced contact centers to achieve a balance between offering a smooth digital customer experience and maintaining a human touch. In other words, the future of customer experience depends on the ability of call center agents (employee experience) at the call center to adapt to changing customer needs. This can be achieved by combining the best technology with an approach filled with care and empathy.
Hence, the importance of employee experience (EX) on customer experience (CX). To increase EX, there are a number of methods that can be implemented, including empowering employees, valuing employee input, using contemporary technology, Omni channel, using an open text channel for customer feedback, and, finally, implementing a customer voice program.
For points 1 and 2, the role of employees is vital for CX. Because of this, EX must start to be given attention to ensure that we achieve excellent customer experience delivery. If EX is unsatisfactory, agents will be like robots, without innovation, creativity and empathy. They will just follow the existing SOP template, e.g. “We apologize for any inconvenience, Sir/Madam, please wait 1×24 hours”.
If a company focuses on CX, then even customers with hard complaints can be made to spend more money on the business. If CX is unsatisfactory, then there will be many negative comments from the customers. However, conversely, if the company offer excellent customer service, then customers will be more loyal and even become good campaign promotors. Simply put, happy customers stay loyal.
Meanwhile, the Covid-19 pandemic has turned the cloud into the predominant asset for those companies whose contact centers have already adopted the cloud model, and an urgent requirement for those who still need to migrate.
The cloud solution offers many benefits for companies, starting from ease of implementation, cost reduction, flexibility and immediate scalability, as well as increased security and data accessibility. Furthermore, the flexibility of the cloud solution makes it possible for companies to diversify call center agents to various sites and guarantee smooth-running business performance, because all agents have access to the same equipment wherever their location.
This pandemic has also changed ways of working to be more home-based. According to a survey by Global Workplace Analytics, 77% of the workforce want to continue working from home after the pandemic ends.
This new trend demands companies provide agents with reliable technology and access to the same features, whether they are working long-distance or in the office. This is to guarantee agent productivity and success, as well as to stave off boredom and maintain business continuity.
Employee experience (EX), particularly agent empathy, will become the new driver of customer loyalty. Digitalization can create greater customer and agent satisfaction, namely through 24/7 service support, faster resolution, and an experience which is more intuitive and personal. Despite this, customers still require the touch of human empathy.
Another point is connected to Omnichannel or multichannel. The omnichannel strategy is no longer a choice, but a necessity. Companies must provide contact center agents access to a robust, integrated omnichannel platform. This platform must facilitate agents to manage and maintain customer interaction across all channels.
With such a variety of requirements, it follows that companies planning to use a cloud contact center platform will consider the following criteria:Flexibility, Reliability, Total Cost Ownership and Security & Compliance.
This is linked to the fact that since 2020, customer experience has become a brand differentiator, so market domination is not just about the product and price we offer, but good customer experience is also a determining factor.
Furthermore, 1 out of 3 customers will leave a product they previously chose because of an unpleasant experience. This has a big impact on businesses. Additionally, 49% of buyers will make impulsive purchases from a personalized customer experience. Therefore, personalization is very important.
Finally, customers who rate a company with a high score forcustomer experience (scale 1-10), increase spending up to 140% and remain loyal for up to 6 years. Of course, these facts strengthen the assertion that customer experience is extremely important.
Unfortunately, to provide the best customer experience, companies must often spend considerably to develop a contact center. A significant change in the business process is required, along with considerable investment and a change in customer culture. Even changing from a traditional contact center is considered complicated, expensive, and it may require days, or even weeks, to implement the required changes.
However, with the cloud a company has flexibility over contact center implementation, based on use according to business needs.
Linked to this, Digiserve offers a Cloud Contact Centre where users can manage technology and create a contemporary service experience, as well as having better business control and flexibility. Digiserve provides the best of both sides: leading software innovation supported by ipSCAPE, as well as a robust hosting service and Telkom Group network.
The Digiserve Cloud Contact Centre Service will increase customer satisfaction with smart and swift customer engagement. Integrated CRM capabilities mean customers are always directed to the appropriate operator from whichever channel they contact. This provides appropriate engagement to ensure customer satisfaction.
Through the Digiserve Cloud Contact Centre, users can stay focused on their customers without being burdened with the complexity of managing multiple suppliers. This is because of the Managed Solution feature which covers cloud software, hosting, voice and data networking without requiring expensive system integration.
The Digiserve Cloud Contact Centre grows alongside business users. As a SaaS service (Software as A Service) solution, the Cloud Contact Centre can reduce or even erase capital expense and replace it with the operational expense. This means that users only need to pay costs based on the frequency of their use. The Cloud Delivery Model also makes it possible to arrange capacity according to customer demand.
All interactions between customers and agents can be conducted easily and efficiently. Customers can easily choose a communication channel while the interaction is underway, whether it is through voice communication, video, chat, or screen-sharing. There is also an inbound operation facility including IVR (Interactive Voice Response), CTI, voice recording and real-time reporting. Outbound operations include predictive/preview dialing, scripting, voice recording, reportsand campaign management. The Cloud Contact Center can receive inbound calls and make outbound calls. The available Multi-Channels are: E-mail, SMS, Social Media, Web Chat, Call.
Reporting and complex data analytics are the pre-eminent features of Digiserve, which can integrate data into the system. Companies can evaluate the performance aspects of each agent, such as the amount of engagement over a specific period, duration of average interaction between agent and customer, amount of engagement not handled, maximum queue number, interaction quality and utilization of each communication channel. Not only this, each company will have more than sufficient storage capacity to store recordings of each interaction.