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Millennials and Next Gen are driving a message-focused future

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By Nick Millward, Vice President Europe at mGage

In recent years, smartphones have become the standard and with 95% of smartphones being used daily, coupled with the innovative capabilities and growing impact on our lives, it is a trend that businesses across all sectors need to pay attention to.  In turn, Over-the-Top (OTT) applications, or ‘social messaging apps’ such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and SMS text messaging have enabled brands to start conversations with consumers more directly and personally than ever before. However, the format and content that brands share with consumers is crucial to the success of the customer engagement.

As technology advances, smartphones continue to evolve and customer attitudes shift, brands need to consider methods that provide not only rich and engaging content via messaging but conversational commerce as a way to interact with consumers. With more than half of 25-34 year olds and 18-24 year olds favouring a messaging service or chatbot over picking up the phone to contact a business, it is evident that brands are facing a growing demand amongst the younger generation for rich conversational messaging that is not set to subside.

Despite the new technologies entering the market, text-based SMS is a communication channel that is highly unlikely to ever be replaced. This is because text messaging is still widely used and remains the preferred platform for brands to communicate with their consumers for critical applications like one-time passwords, reminders and balance updates. However, for brands to get the most out of their communication tactics they need to listen to what their consumers want. Sadly, more than half of consumers say they find marketing messages boring and would much prefer messages that are well targeted and well designed, using images and video content to bring the messages to life. This is where Rich Communications Services (RCS), the latest development in the evolution of mobile messaging, can really hold its own.

With the capability to provide a richer experience for users and the ability to encompass multimedia that incorporate offers and coupons, brands are able to open up their communication channels to consumers and offer alternatives that are personal to them. Consumers today, particularly among the younger generation, are more willing to engage via messaging that is interactive and delivers a much rich media experience. This is good news for brands wishing to expand their consumer experience.

Our latest whitepaper unearthed some interesting statistics with perhaps the most telling being that consumers of all ages wants brands to do better – to bring engaging and exciting offers and content to them in an easily-accessible format that makes them confident to buy more.   The best way to do this is to utilise rich content messaging and multimedia for marketing communications to attract the attention of consumers. RCS also brings a more conversational and interactive messaging experience in line with the demand by the younger generation to text a brand rather than pick up the phone. Utilising chatbot elements and the functionality of suggested actions and responses, brands are able to direct their consumers to the information they require more quickly and easily than trying to navigate through a clunky Interactive Voice Response (IVR).

With technology continually advancing and customer attitudes shifting towards more message-focused platforms, brands worldwide have access to innovative solutions that have the capability to transform the way that they communicate with consumers. Driven by the demands of millennials and next-gen, brands need to consider solutions that are in line with the expectations of future generations and adjust their communication strategies to meet these, if not they could see a huge impact on the success of the business.

As the adoption of more interactive and rich media messaging platforms become more prevalent, brands will be able to communicate directly with their consumers, target likely prospects more effectively, gain better campaign analytics and offer unparalleled customer service through instant responses and notifications to ensure that they give the consumers of the future the communications that they not only want but come to expect.

Click here to download the Mobile Messaging State of Mind whitepaper.

Connect ESAT to CSAT in Times of Crisis: NICE introduces WEM@home

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At a time when human connections matter most, are your frontline employees empowered to perform, and inspired to care? Are you doing all you can to keep your agents engaged and motivated?

Now, more than ever, every moment in the customer journey matters. The COVID-19 crisis has evolved to render face-to-face touchpoints less frequent, thereby highlighting the value of connected experiences in channels from phone to chat to SMS text.

Contact centre agents are in a unique position to deliver personalised, seamless omnichannel customer experiences that synthesise a variety of interactions – and to put the “care” in “customer care”. To this end, contact centre leaders that use actionable insights gained from agent experience feedback can inform successful evolution in times of disruption.

Would your agents recommend your company to a friend?

Employees, when engaged and empowered with the right tools and training, can be your most valuable brand asset – and increase customer loyalty while reducing customer churn.  Successful companies use the power of Net Promoter Score (NPS) along with direct, indirect and operational customer feedback to refine and deliver superior customer experiences, all along a holistic journey. Just as NPS reflects customer experiences from the outside in, it is equally as important to gain insights from the inside out.  Would your agents recommend your company to a friend? How they feel about their experience directly reflects to the experience they provide to the customer.

With insight comes opportunity

Especially in times of crisis, Voice of the Employee (VoE) and agent experience insights are a key part of the holistic feedback mechanism that powers customer experience management. Enhancements to customer experience cannot be accomplished without a keen understanding of the customer experience agent.  How do they feel about their ability to successfully engage when their work environment changes? Do they have the tools they need to deliver? This critical connection cannot be overlooked when working situations evolve. As the human connection to your brand, you must understand their situation and align to their changing needs.

Igniting a holistic CEM program that elevates CSAT

Times of crisis offer an opportunity to authentically engage with your customers, as well as your employees. This open outreach can nurture a collective appreciation of individual feedback that can shift CX programs into high gear. When agents on the front lines feel their feedback is important – their voice is heard – spirits are lifted, and that is infectious. Opening that feedback channel can inspire an ongoing, company-wide culture that not only elevates performance, but values input. And it is that input that is critical to a holistic understanding of all experiences that affect CSAT.

Our challenging times have surfaced human connections as a premium. As contact centre agents connect with your customers, it is more important than ever to connect to their input. With a durable, integrated feedback framework, agents can be inspired to see problems, find solutions, and feel more accountable to a holistic customer experience that delivers on your brand promise.

Integrated feedback management is an essential tool to gather and synthesise actionable frontline insights. NICE Satmetrix offers integrated listening for a 360 degree understanding of multidimensional behaviours that impact customer loyalty. To learn more about how you can gather and use employee experience feedback to drive engagement, and gain visibility and ensure performance, visit wem@home.

Coronavirus: CCaaS from Home

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By Content Guru

COVID-19 is spreading, and nobody knows how the situation is going to develop. Governments around the world are responding to the situation with bans on public gatherings and travel, and even quarantining whole cities.

The impact on business is already huge. Dozens of factories, schools, and offices around the world have closed, while conferences, meetings, and trips have been cancelled globally. Contact centres are especially exposed to this risk. Organisations planning their response need to look at two things – protecting their workers, and ensuring business continuity in the face of this threat.

How to Safeguard Continuity?

How do organisations not just operate, but thrive, in the face of this threat? Businesses responding to events like COVID-19 need to be one thing above all others – agile. They need to know that they are equipped to respond rapidly and appropriately to ongoing events, whether it is an outbreak like COVID-19, or a more common form of disruption like a power outage or severe weather.

Do your current disaster recovery protocols allow you to continue working after your office has been closed with little to no notice? How, in the face of adversity, do you deliver great experiences to your customers?

You need to provide your colleagues, and your customers, with continuity of service. In order to enable your organisation to rapidly move to distributed working models such as homeworking, you need to be backed by technology that offers that agility. Without the technology to back up your plans, your organisation risks having to cease operations as well as close your contact centre.

How We Can Help

Now is the time to act. Our award-winning CCaaS solution, storm®, gives contact centres the flexibility and, crucially, the speed that you need. Our cloud contact centre solution can be deployed in days and ready-to-use wherever your agents are, whether that’s in the contact centre or at home.

Due to its browser-based nature, all an agent or supervisor needs to carry on is an internet-enabled device, such as a laptop, and a headset. This means that your business can rapidly adapt in the face of disruption, and continue to provide your customers with great experiences. Content Guru can guide you through this process with a hybrid deployment, in which initially numbers and intelligent routing capabilities are moved to the cloud, whilst keeping the same familiar agent desktop. This deployment model acts as a stepping stone for organizations to rapidly move to a full CCaaS deployment as and when required.

Meanwhile, our scale means that even the largest contact centres can have a ready-to-go cloud contingency plan. Without significant investment, many on-premise contact centres are not set up to cater for all agents working from home. As storm is a true cloud solution, however, the location of the agent does not matter, and it can scale immediately in line with a rapid move to homeworking.

A concern many organizations have with a move to homeworking, especially one which has to be implemented relatively quickly, is in how they ensure standards remain high, and that they are able to continue their auditing and compliance monitoring. Our Quality Management tool set, storm SYMPHONY™, delivers screen recording and omni-channel recording through the cloud, while our reporting interface, VIEW™, ensures that your supervisors can continue to monitor the contact centre both historically and in real-time.

To find out more about how to implement an effective disaster recovery solution for your contact centre: https://www.contentguru.com/storm-dr/

Best practices in SMS customer care

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By mGage

Did you know that 95% of people who had a bad experience are willing to give a brand another go if they know that their issue was dealt with correctly[1]?

Customer care is extremely important for brands, and facilitating customer care over as many communication channels as possible is good business practice.

Text messaging, or SMS, is an excellent channel for customers because it’s convenient, and immediate. We ran a webinar on the Best Practices in SMS customer care and wanted to share some key points below.

SMS Customer Care Use Cases

Customers prefer SMS customer service to voice because it’s more convenient than waiting on the phone. In fact, 81% of all consumers get frustrated being tied to a phone or computer to wait for customer service help[2]. By adding text messaging to your communication, you will reduce operational and call center costs, while at the same time increase customer satisfaction. Below are a few customer care messaging examples that are used today.

Reminders: Sending SMS reminders to your customers will help decrease missed appointments and ensure payment adherence. With 98% of text messages being read within two minutes[3], sending a quick text message is a more efficient way to reach your customers than trying to reach them with a phone call or sending an email they may not see.

Bank Alerts: SMS provides a much more expedited, seamless experience for fraud notifications and charge authorizations, creating a better customer experience than previous methods. By being notified promptly, customers will feel like their bank is looking out for them.

Call-back Requests: Implementing call back requests via SMS immediately reduces strain on your call center and instantly improves customer satisfaction by reducing wait times. You can even enable your toll-free number for this purpose, so customers who are already familiar with your current contact info can continue to use the same number.

Best Practices for Delivering Customer Care Messages

Be Very Clear: Clarity is essential when delivering your customer care messages. Be upfront and set the proper expectations, so customers know what they are signing up for.

Keywords are Key: We always suggest you use the keep it short and simple (KISS) approach for keywords. Customers want to receive messages that are easy to read and digest, so keep it simple and avoid special characters. Choose keywords that won’t be autocorrected and be sure to choose keywords that are straight to the point.

Test Measure & Learn: Finally, learn from all the information you get and use it to improve the customer service you deliver to your customers. Measure the success of your customer service alerts by paying attention to the number of customers opting in and out of your programs. The number of opt-outs is a good indication as to whether the content remains relevant to your audience.

Final thoughts

Provide the best customer support by adding text messaging to your communication channel. These are just some of the best practices we would suggest for your SMS customer care strategy. To view our webinar on the best practices in SMS customer care, click here.

For more in-depth detail, contact us today and speak with one of our experts.

Sources

[1] https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/5-reasons-why-customer-experience-is-the-pulse-of-every-business

[2] Harris Interactive, “The High Demand for Customer Service via Text Messaging”

[3] RetailDive

2020 Contact centre trends you need to know

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Contact Centre executives have a lot on their plates. To thrive in 2020 and beyond, successful leaders must set their sights on strategic differentiation, not daily firefighting. No longer is it sufficient to react in-the-moment and call it good enough.

The smartest (and most successful) contact centre leaders realise they need to keep looking forward at all times to identify the important trends shaping the industry.

For our annual trends e-book, Serenova researched and spoke to industry analysts, customers and prospects to uncover the critical, emerging trends that deserve your attention. Understanding these issues will help you effectively prioritize resources, including time, budget and workforce, to ensure your contact centre operates at its full potential.

Download your copy today at https://success.serenova.com/ccb-2020-trends

INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT: ContactOne

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At ContactOne we believe in creating more successful conversations by using true multi-channel / omni-channel engagements that enable business-to-consumer (B2C) organisations to communicate with their customers via the customers’ channel of choice.

Customers want to engage with a contact centre through their media of choice without unnecessary repetition of previous conversation elements…just one conversation across all interactions. Our advanced agent workplace does just that allowing the agent to view the whole, threaded conversation, along with the notes made during each communication. Consistent engagement across all media, along with sophisticated routing and a blended, universal queue makes it easier to upskill agents from a single media to interactions spanning all channels. Our platform includes all major channels including Voice, Email, Webchat, SMS, Facebook, Twitter and Trustpilot.

Contact centre managers want extensive, real-time information, with scheduled email reporting on daily, weekly and monthly trends. With a wide range of widgets our platform delivers data in a clear digestible format enabling contact centre managers to easily create, and share, real-time analysis wall boards to show information in a way that’s relevant to their business needs

Supervisors need basic information about calls in progress, contact centre / agent performance and real-time agent availability. Our supervisor dashboard widgets show this information and much more. They are optimised for the needs of the contact centre supervisor and, like the analysis widgets, can be combined by the supervisor to show the exact information required. Supervisors can even listen in on agent conversations and assist by whispering to the agent during the conversation if necessary.

Understanding what your customers think is a key element of the modern, B2C contact centre, which is why ContactOne’s Contact Centre platform incorporates both a CSAT module for real-time Voice-of-the-Customer (VoC) feedback along with a Monitoring and Engagement module for Social Media (Facebook, Twitter etc.) and Review sites such as Trustpilot and FeeFo.

Find out how ContactOne can help you have more successful conversations, contact us via phone 0330 880 4444 or email info@contactone.net for a free demonstration of our Contact Centre platform.

Company Website: https://contactone.net

Contact Centre Automation: Best Practices for 2020

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By TTEC

With the digitisation of contact centre operations, the status quo is being upended. Technological advances in robotic process automation (RPA), AI, and machine learning (ML) are literally changing the face of customer care.

However, just because you can automate something in the contact centre doesn’t mean you should. To know which tasks to turn over to artificial intelligence and a machine is a challenge. One must balance core service goals with digital worker capabilities and provide exceptional customer experience.

Learn more about contact centre automation best practices – download TTEC’s white paper, Thoughtful Contact Centre Automation Transforms Customer Care.

WHITE PAPER: How AI Improves Customer Experience

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By CallMiner

Artificial intelligence is being used in many ways to improve customer experience, and innovative new use cases are emerging all the time. Enterprises must reimagine their operations, with automation and AI at the center of their strategy.

This paper provides an overview of artificial intelligence, explains how AI fits into the spectrum of technologies used for managing contact centers operations and efficiencies both on the agent and customer side, how speech is a gold mine for data, and identifies the leading use cases that are delivering customer experience and stronger business value through customer engagement analytics.

To download the white paper, click here.

3 Strategies to Connect the Experience – Get the QuandaGo eBook

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Looking for insights on how to take your customer engagement to the next level? Get strategic guidance on how to connect the experience for your customers, agents and company with QuandaGo—The Connected Experience Platform.

See the common causes of today’s CX disconnect, and how to overcome them by bringing your customer interactions, company knowledge and business processes together in a single place. 

Empower your employees and customers with just the right information at just the right time. Automate tasks and workflows with AI. Drive greater efficiency and accelerated results by connecting the contact center into the back office—and across your business. 

Get the free eBook here today!

Banking on security: Keeping customer data secure in financial services

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Simon Hill, Legal & Compliance, Certes Networks

The protection of sensitive data in line with regulations, both for banks and other financial services organisations, is currently a big challenge.

The way these organisations operate has changed dramatically in recent years, due mostly to the fact that financial institutions are not only heavily regulated by data privacy requirements, but they are also under mounting pressure to be open to consumers and businesses about how they are protecting their data from potential breaches.

The increasing expectations of consumers means that banks and financial institutions are trying to achieve a balancing act: how can they protect data privacy, while at the same time remaining transparent about how data is being protected?

However, it doesn’t have to be a play-off between meeting these customer expectations and meeting cyber security and compliance requirements: banks and financial services organisations can utilise technology to the fullest extent while still protecting data. 

The balancing act 

To achieve this balance, banks and financial services organisations need to take control of their security posture and assume the entire network is vulnerable to the possibility of a cyber-attack. Robust encryption and controlled security policies should be a central part of an organisation’s cyber security strategy.

Through generating and defining policies, network policy enforcement allows organisations to ensure that only authorised applications and users are communicating with one another, while enabling them to meet their own governance, security and compliance requirements. 

Rather than waiting for a cyber-attack to happen, new technology tools are now available to gain a deeper understanding of policy deployment and analyse every application that tries to communicate across the network, all the while monitoring all traffic and limiting the pathways potential threats can travel. 

Conclusion 

Banks and financial services organisations should not have to worry about keeping data secure and protected. Adopting new ways of thinking about how these organisations can strengthen the protection of data requires well-defined policies, strict key assignments and authorisation of who sends and receives data.

But, most importantly, the ability to enforce policies to better monitor and observe applications and suspicious activity on the network will require sophisticated technology and tools that are currently available today.