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CX

Davies webinar session: Financial services organisations struggle to create a CX culture built to last – but why?

 960 640 Stuart O'Brien
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84% of financial services leaders rank business process alignment as more important than putting the customer first when designing customer experiences. How can they then create a CX culture that really puts the customer first?

Davies has discovered that culture seems to be taking a backseat for most CX leaders, although we all know that the absence of customer-first thinking often brings longer contact-centre wait times & more effort, resulting in enhanced frustration & unhappy customers.

In Davies’ upcoming webinar session, they’ll discover why, and their expert panel will share top tips on how to create a CX culture that will help you achieve those all-important business objectives.

Register below to find out:

  • How organisational culture is holding your fellow financial services peers back from achieving their CX goals
  • What CX leaders across financial services see as the most important factors in CX design
  • Common misconceptions on building and sustaining a strong internal CX focussed culture
  • Get actionable insight on how to develop a sustainable CX culture in your business
  • Ask any burning questions you have in a Q&A session

Don’t miss out! If you can’t make the webinar on the day, sign up and Davies will send the recording to you.

Register here

 

Personalisation should be harnessed for better customer communication in 2022

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Paul Adams, Senior Director at cloud communications platform Twilio, has shared his 2022 predictions, drawing on observations in consumer behaviour and customer engagement over the pandemic…

  1. The increased use of first-party data to understand customers from small businesses

“Historically, Netflix and Amazon have dominated the practice of personalisation by making use of first party data, but this will be increasingly used by a wider array of businesses too. The emergence of customer data platforms has made it easier for businesses to harness this data, enabling them to replicate these same levels of personalisation for themselves. Customers now expect this personalised experience, and as more companies begin to rethink their approach to customer experience and update their communication methods, we’ll see a levelling out across businesses of all sizes.

All businesses are going to need to understand all their customer touch points, journeys and profile to the same extent in the long run. Otherwise, consumers’ relationships with your business will be generic, not personalised, and ultimately the consumer will gravitate towards the competition.  So regardless of whether you’re a broadband provider, a grocery retailer, or a holiday booking company, you’ve got to prove that the way you’re engaging with customers and the experience you’re delivering is the best.”

2. The mass digital transformation of small businesses in the B2C market 

“Digital transformation was at the forefront of business conversations before the pandemic, but the sudden need to convert businesses to a digital model overnight significantly sped up the process — by as much as 6 years for many. Businesses are now coming to the end of their natural tech refresh cycles and are accepting that digital transformation is imperative for survival in the market. While large businesses are more likely to have made this jump already, smaller organisations, which have tighter resources and more restrictive budgets by nature, have been slower to make the transition. Many small businesses simply didn’t have the resources to completely remodel during the pandemic, so instead focused on making smaller adjustments for survival. Now, these SMBs, which account  for around 99.2% of businesses in the UK, will be the ones leading this technology innovation and investing in digital transformation for the longer-term. As a result, the level of digital innovation we see from SMBs will be on a level akin to that seen from entrepreneurs in the 1980s.

“Beyond that you’re going to see a lot of industries adopting technology to support better customer engagement. We’re already seeing this in the UK’s mature market, with industries like healthcare, utilities, even buying and selling cars, increasingly moving to a more digital model. Ultimately, their product hasn’t changed but the way they interact with consumers has evolved with apps, chat bots, SMS and WhatsApp for reminders, conversations and alerts. Big brands like Uber and AirBnB have mastered this technique, and innovative start-ups are integrating these lessons into their business models. However, the SMBs that got through the pandemic with limited and underdeveloped digital migrations will now be adjusting their models and their communication methods to meet this expectation.  We’re going to see some very fast-growing companies in this space, as a pressure to differentiate mounts and the ones who engage well, with a great digital service, will be the one to own the transaction.

3. Hybrid lifestyles will be consolidated in the next year, and we expect to see an increased reliance on digital communications for older demographics remote over 30s. 

“The move from pandemic to endemic is an important shift and will have a notable impact on customer engagement. This change will be felt as we experience more new variants and subsequent periods of re-socialisation – and consumer behaviour will be driven by these patterns  as we learn to live with the disease. From this we’ll see three main camps emerge: those who want to return to how things were, those who embrace a hybrid lifestyle and others who adopt a purely remote way of living.”

“Age is a large determining factor driving this changing consumer behaviour. In many cases, it’s younger people who want to return to cities for that socialisation they’ve missed out on this past year, whilst slightly older groups are feeling the benefits of hybrid or remote working more as they have more flexibility to manoeuvre their working lives around families and other commitments. These two groups will be further consolidated in this next phase of the pandemic. Hybrid lifestyles will be solidified with new, flexible commuting patterns while remote lifestyles will become more normalised as families move out of cities and become full-time work-from-home employees.

Younger demographics have historically driven digital adoption. If you look at social media, for example, it’s the 18-35 year olds that make up 80% of users in the UK.  Yet while this age group will continue to lead the charge in embracing newer inventions, we’ll see older demographics start to adapt more to the everyday use of technology to support increasingly hybrid lifestyles. From here, we’ll see greater integration of technologies like digital communications tools to facilitate these lifestyles, so people can work more flexibly and efficiently in the way they choose. Overall, this will increase the prevalence of technology in all of our communities.

4. Business tech innovation decisions will be made based on making businesses ‘future-proof’ rather than just price. 

“The pandemic has highlighted two things for businesses when it comes to technology. First is the importance of having multiple communication channels to alleviate the risk of disruption for customers, and second is the need to invest in technology that will safe-guard businesses for the future. No one could have predicted the pandemic and its effects, but for businesses, it quickly became apparent that those who were forward leaning with their technology footprint were able to make the necessary adjustments to survive. Those who weren’t struggled, and many sadly didn’t make it.  I think this idea of making businesses ‘future proof’ has really taken root and will influence our investment decisions and priorities moving forward. Thinking about long-term solutions that can weather storms will become the way we decide on investment, more so than just considering price. This is also relevant when thinking about sustainability and climate change.

“Something else to consider here is the impact of the “Great Resignation” when it comes to future-proofing businesses. The relationship between organisations and their staff has changed for the long term, and employers are now having to ask themselves how they attract and maintain essential workforce when one in four employees are re-evaluating their careers. Investing in technologies that enable flexibility and open communication with employees and customers is no longer just an IT project — it’s about making fundamental changes to the business model to ensure survival and growth. Those who deploy the tools of digital transformation will be in a far greater position for the next uncertain wave arrives. This is what we mean when we say ‘future-proofing’.”

Movers & shakers: Talkwalker’s top 10 brands of 2021

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2021 flashed by, and brands across the globe kept the pedal to the metal to stay one step ahead of a relentless year. COVID restrictions eased and then returned, competition in the digital realm was fiercer than ever, and consumer preferences changed in the blink of an eye.

However, there were several brands that excelled against all odds, and these are the brands to draw inspiration from as we journey through 2022.

Click here to see Talkwalker’s top 10 brands of 2021.

Do you know what’s missing from your CX strategy?

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By Genesys

Our team here at Genesys have been hard at work creating a digital consultancy solution focused on Omnichannel Contact Centre.  This is in the form of an online self-assessment that will enable you to benchmark against industry standards, identify relevant use cases, and define your CX strategy roadmap.  We’d like to invite you to take advantage of this digital consultancy.

This online self-assessment should take just 5 minutes to complete. Our system will then generate a bespoke report for you which we can walk through. You can also share this invitation with other contacts within your business to complete the assessment and we will correlate the results.

Your report will show anonymously benchmarked results, an assessment of your strengths and also a specific action plan to show you the fastest path to an optimised position.

Just click here to complete your self-assessment and receive your report today!

WHITE PAPER: Video in the contact center – How to future-proof your CX

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By Vonage

Putting your customers first by serving them on their channel of choice can be challenging and complex for both your business and agents. Adding video to the mix can take that to the next level.

Adrian Swinscoe, best-selling author and Forbes contributor, outlines these challenges and provides industry-specific use cases in his new whitepaper: Video in the Contact Center – How to Future-Proof Your CX.

Download to read how video can take your CX into the future.

Agile Queue Management – How to manage queues more effectively

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By Kirsty Ferguson, Enterprise Engagement Lead, Premier CX

N.B. This article was originally published in The Good CX Guide, an e-book on the topic of caller experience best practice.  To download the guide, packed with practical advice for contact centre professionals, please click here.

In most articles I have read about managing call queues, one piece of advice that always pops up is to be “dynamic”. However, what does that really mean? And how can you possibly even think about being agile and dynamic when you have a giant board of lights above your head with queue times rising above SLA and several callers waiting that you know aren’t going to get through before the lines cut off at the end of the day?

In reality, the answer is simple. USE THE QUEUE. Literally, use all you have available to you to manage your peaks and keep those boards at bay. In this brief article, I’m going to suggest how you can get started.

Step One – What You Can Use

Think about your arsenal. Do you have live chat? Do you have comfort messaging? Maybe you can publish your wait times. Whatever it is, use it in context. Being dynamic is about knowing what to use and when to use it. Furthermore, if you have enough agility to turn things on and off as you need to in real-time, then even better.

For example, if you have long queues and your live chat is switched off, switch it on and put a message in the queue telling the caller it’s now available. If you can stream, then chances are you can set parameters to automatically drop this message in when queue lengths hit a specific timeframe. Do you have the ability to stream in queue experiences? Can you publish your wait times? You may think you can’t utilise some of this stuff without IT’s help, but clever messaging can open a whole world of deflection that can help you manage your queues.

Step Two – Why Are the Queues There?

What has caused your queue? Is it external communication that’s resulted in a sudden influx of calls? Is it a forecasted spike or is it just an unknown? What is the most likely thing the caller is going to be talking to your agents about? Once you know the cause, you can account for how long the peak is likely to last and switch on helpful messaging in the queue when needed.

For example, suppose you have a power outage that affects a particular postcode. A simple CLI lookup will enable you to only advise callers from the appropriate geographical area of the outage and how long electricity is likely to be down. If you are receiving spikes for several reasons when queueing hits a certain threshold, why not introduce a more empathetic level of music/voice and tone into your queue. You could also add a message to advise that live chat is available or that non-urgent queries can be dealt with online.

Step Three – Get Your Caller Agent Ready

Is the caller ready? Think about what you need the caller to know, or have at their fingertips, when they get connected to help the agent assist them more efficiently. Things like delivery details, order numbers, account numbers, and so on. And if they don’t have this info, and you can’t talk to them without it, let them know (nicely, of course) before they get to an agent. Then when they call back, recognise the fact they are a repeat caller. You can use dynamic IVR to show you know they are a repeat caller and give them a message along the lines of:

“Thanks for calling back. We’ll put you straight through to someone who can help with deliveries, but if you want to talk to us about something else, press ‘1’ to go to the main menu”.

This will help prioritise your callers that are in the queue.

These are just a few ways that the queue and IVR can help you manage demand, keep you agile, and enable you to be dynamic when under the pressure of mounting call queues. Of course, some queues are just inevitable, but there is always something else that can be done by using what you have. You just have to look hard enough.

N.B. This article was originally published in The Good CX Guide, an e-book on the topic of caller experience best practice.  To download the guide, packed with practical advice for contact centre professionals, please click here.

Empower Agents to Deliver Exceptional Experiences

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By Medallia

Create a motivated and engaged work-from-anywhere team that brings a human touch to every customer interaction. Get visibility into agent performance, identify coaching opportunities, and streamline your QA program with Stella Connect by Medallia. Start using the CX management tool your team actually likes, today.

Click here to find out more.

Thinking of Transforming your CX Strategy?

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By Foehn

At Foehn we work with our clients to deliver world-class CX strategies through the delivery of agile, digital, cloud-based solutions such as Genesys Cloud. We have helped many companies enhance their customer experience through our implementations, allowing them to use digital channels, CSAT tools, Workforce Management and Gamification to improve both the customer and agent experience.

Get in touch with us today to start your digital transformation journey!

www.foehn.co.uk

sales@foehn.co.uk

0330 403 0000

Bot Revolution to Permanent WFH: What 2021 Has in Store for CX

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By Content Guru

In the contact centre industry, looking backwards can often give us a clear indicator of what lies ahead. 2020 brought with it both personal and professional challenges no one could have predicted. However, the coronavirus crisis marked a clear turning point for the contact centre – one that has laid the foundations for further changes on the horizon.

Indeed, many of the tools, technologies and techniques that enabled the sector to navigate the pandemic – through lockdowns, infection scares and financial concerns – have put the contact centre on a course of continuing innovation and disruption for the decade ahead.

Let’s take a look at some of the emergent factors set to fuel the contact centre of the future.

Flexible Working Becomes the New Norm

At the start of 2020, contact centres that had already adopted modern cloud technologies were able to pivot in a matter of days to successfully implement new distributed working models. Enabling agents to work securely and compliantly from home, even when handling payments, was just the start. Organisations have also used their contact centre-as-a-service (CCaaS) solutions to manage everything from workforce performance and wellbeing, to delivering support and training tailored exactly to the real-time needs of individual agents.

For many, the remote and hybrid models implemented in 2020 will determine how they resource contact centre operations in the future. This will usher in an era, in which agents will have more flexible working options, and organisations will be able to access greater operational agility, essential for coping with evolving market demands.

Working Smarter – with Greater Granular Control

Intelligent automation and smart scheduling tools have certainly proved their worth as contact centres strived to optimise resource utilisation in the context of agent availability. Indeed, today’s AI powered Workforce Optimisation (WFO) has proved highly effective at ensuring schedules are kept at peak efficiency, while giving agents maximum control over the hours they want to work.

Alongside automated services, intelligent routing, and real-time reporting, today’s CCaaS solutions make it possible to ensure that agents are always presented with a familiar desktop – complete with the call recording facilities and integrated information databases they needed to perform – regardless of their location.

Some organisations have even taken advantage of their integrated CCaaS and unified communications environment to garner feedback from agents at the drop of a hat via virtual quality improvement ‘huddles’. Using these insights, contact centre leaders are able to tweak workflows to improve how agents interact with calls, or the information systems they depend on to serve customers.

The Rise of the Bot – Delivering CX with a Human Touch

Having found themselves at times wholly dependent on digital and remote services to undertake everyday life tasks, consumers will increasingly expect to encounter streamlined experiences, no matter which channel they choose to interact with brands over.

While AI, chatbots, smart speakers and virtual assistants aren’t new, the rapid expansion of digital channels during the pandemic saw more contact centres adopting such technologies to cut response times and sustain the mass delivery of high-quality personalised customer experiences.

Capable of sustaining humanised two-way conversations and even detecting a caller’s current mood, AI assistants are fast becoming mainstream in digital channels. In time, expect the role of contact centre agents to evolve, as they increasingly work in collaboration with these technologies to deliver efficient customer experiences with a human touch.

The last 12 months have presented contact centres with an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate digital transformation. In the coming years, they will continue to evolve into value-driven customer engagement hubs capable of orchestrating end-to-end, intuitive customer experiences across every channel.

Keep up with customer expectations. Enhance your CX today: https://bit.ly/37DMdJ3

How Analytics Can Help You Deliver Superior Customer Service

 960 640 Lauren Maschio
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Lauren Maschio, Product Marketing Manager, NICE

Consumers today expect world-class customer experiences, and delivering the fast, personalized service they demand requires that you build analytics into the core of your business. Analytics can deliver a competitive advantage by improving the quality of your interactions with customers, and with the contact centre the most vital point of contact between your company and your customers, that’s critically important.

Analytics encompasses far more than trends and insights, however; trends and numbers will get you nowhere unless your analytics program is driving the business outcomes you desire rather than simply identifying trends. Here’s what you need keep in mind to truly impact CX and CSAT:

Leverage the power of AI

AI technology has become the driving force behind innovation ranging from self-driving cars to e-commerce recommendations. In the contact center, the use of prebuilt AI technology for analytics has moved from a nice-to-have to an imperative due to its ability to transform customer service, both in terms of quality as well as efficiency. While machine learning examines and compares data to find patterns and explore nuances, AI takes it a step further, continually evolving in how it enables machines to behave in a way previously thought to require human intelligence.

In the contact center, that takes a variety of forms, including:

  • Autodiscovery, or the use of unsupervised machine learning to surface unknowns in interactions data, which makes it possible to focus deeper analysis on the topics that are most critical to your business.
  • Sentiment analysis, which is a proven predictive indicator of customer satisfaction such as tNPS or CSAT surveys.
  • AI behavior models, which score the agent soft-skill behaviors that influence the sentiment analysis on all interactions.

Move beyond speech analytics

Your agents’ interactions with customers are no longer limited to the phone; increasingly, customers are reaching out via chat, email, social media and more. If you really want to know what your customers are talking about, you must be analyzing interactions over all channels – text and audio.

An omnichannel approach that covers all channels of interactions enables you to analyze a variety of characteristics, including:

  • Speech time/non-speech time, or the presence and amount of speaking vs. silence in calls over a period of time. You can identify both the agents who have the highest speech or non-speech time as well as the reasons for call silence.
  • Agent response time in a chat, or how long it takes the agent to respond to a chat request.
  • Customer sentiment on social channels, including through text, hashtags and more.

Focus on outcomes, not data collection

When implemented in a way that drives outcomes rather than simply outlining trends, analytics offers tremendous potential to improve CX and CSAT, as one financial services provider found. After implementing an analytics program across its contact center, the provider discovered that agents were missing information, leading to long hold times. By training agents better, the provider was able to:

  • Decrease hold times.
  • Increase customer satisfaction.
  • Save more than $540,000 annually.

Keep evolving

If there’s one constant today, it’s that change is ongoing. Your sales and service models aren’t static, so your analytics program shouldn’t be either. Your business — and the language your agents and customers use when speaking about your unique environment, products and services – will naturally evolve, and your analytics program must be able to adapt in response.

To learn more about how analytics can give you the tools you need to drive the outcomes your business desires and the service your customers demand, download the ebook, AI-Enabled Contact Center Analytics For Dummies.