Handling cross channel escalations in your contact centre
The way customers interact with companies has evolved on a massive scale. Today’s businesses aren’t just taking calls from anxious clients or contacting customers over the phone. Conversations between brands and their patrons can happen on any channel.
Customer interactions can now move from one channel to another as smoothly as we’d move from one call to the next. What this means for business leaders is that the contact centre needs to be ready for a more aligned, omni-channel experience. After all, your customers don’t just need you to be available on all the channels they want you to access – they also want you to provide them with a seamless, connected experience from start to finish.
How Do Companies Escalate Cross-Channel Conversations?
To create the kind of aligned cross-channel conversations that today’s customers demand, companies need a connected omni-channel contact centre. The same single-pane-of-glass environment needs to be available for agents to use whether they’re talking to clients over text and SMS, or they’re launching a video conversation. A connected environment ensures that your agents don’t have to spend as much time jumping between applications.
Additionally, an all-in-one contact centre also makes it easier for businesses to track the full customer journey from start to finish, collecting meaningful insights along the way. When everything in the back end is connected, information flows freely throughout the organisation, allowing for a more aligned workforce. You can even integrate things like customer relationship management and support ticketing tools, to further enhance the experience.
The easiest way to create a comprehensive cross-channel communication strategy for customer service and support is to use a CCaaS system. The contact centre as a Service allows companies to build the contact centre that’s right for them on a flexible foundation. As the business grows and new channels emerge, it’s easy to add new functionality and lines. As “aaS” solutions become more versatile, APIs and integrations make the experience more customisable for different teams.
Companies can even use their CCaaS to implement self-service solutions, like chatbots and IVR systems that can help customers solve their own problems, before passing them onto an agent.
Combining Technology with Policy
Once the right technology is in place, with an all-in-one CCaaS solution, the next step is implementing the right policies. For instance, the correct algorithms need to be in place for companies using chatbots to determine when a chatbot should offer to connect a customer to a human agent when a problem can’t be solved through self-service.
Similarly, if a customer is chatting to a human agent on a website live chat service, they need to know when it’s the right time to elevate that conversation to a voice call or video chat. Policies will make it easier for teams to follow procedures that should strengthen customer satisfaction and experience. All the while, the technology on the back end ensure that the context of a conversation remains visible and accessible to everyone who needs it, allowing for a streamlined transition.
Source: CX Today
