Contact centers change with every new piece of technology that allows agents to do their jobs cheaper and more efficiently. They also change with the habits of the customer base. Businesses spend much time and money on their contact center transformation strategies, but how does one evaluate what changes work and what changes don’t work?
According to a recent West Interactive (News - Alert) blog, contact centers are all about customer care, and that environment changes frequently enough that evaluating contact center transformation can be difficult. And, it’s not unusual for companies to be limited by their current infrastructure in evaluating what solution will work best – not all solutions are compatible.
As many companies find out when they are evaluating their contact center transformation options, however, the hosted solutions should offer them a platform where their existing hardware will be compatible so that the customer experience isn’t affected.
Once a business has established that no problems will arise with respect to compatibility, the next focus should be on how the contact center transformation will affect the customer. Is the platform focusing on customer service on every contact point? Does the platform allow for quick and simple augmentation allowing the contact center to adjust to campaigns that reach out to different cultures and geographies? Are the insights into the customer’s wants and needs easy to ascertain? Does the solution provide the value-based methodologies that focus on customer satisfaction?
The contact center transformation should focus on flexibility. Businesses need a solution that will grow with them and adapt to any changes in the business plan and changes in the customer demographic. The transformation should also allow for taking on additional contact centers in future expansions.
Companies that have gone through a contact center transformation learned that they needed a consistent contact routing solution to be incorporated with the transformation. This is a success because the call routing reduces the amount of time it takes to authenticate the customers, which gives agents more time to tend to the issues the customer has, which improves customer satisfaction and ultimately, it leads to less cost per call and more profits.
Contact center transformation strategies often include real-time operational monitoring and reporting. This gives companies the visibility they need to make changes quickly. Along with recording and reporting, administrators can monitor for quality, which has proven extremely successful in developing the highest quality workforce in the fastest possible time frame. A more informed and better trained workforce equals higher customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.
Edited by Rich Steeves