More contact centers now understand the importance of a strong customer service than in the past. In fact, studies have proven that a good, better, or the best customer service equates to business and revenue growth. As such, customers are now more inclined to contact centers that stay true to what they advertise. Conversely, customers can just as quickly leave a them if the contact center does not fulfill its promise of a great customer experience (CX). Including the different industries as a whole, 81% of organizations cite CX as a competitive differentiator. So, what can contact center do to keep up?

Contact centers can work on one idea to alleviate costs and increase revenue: modernizing customer experience.

But, this can be daunting to some contact centers; after all, customer experience continues to change and grow in an exponential rate. As a result, they more likely than not struggle to keep up with the new trends and expectations. Additionally, some contact centers even have a hard time providing customers a seamless and uncomplicated experiences.

“What can contact centers do in further modernizing their customer experience?” is the question many want to know.  Here, we will give some tips on how contact centers can modernize their CX to better serve their customers.

Digital Over Voice And Any Other Communication Channels
Gone are the days wherein the only option for customers to communicate with an agent is to call them on the phone. These days, the more channels a customer can reach your contact center, the better. As a result, contact centers should be fully-equipped with different kinds of digital – as well as voice -channels to become more reachable to their customers. Common examples are chatting, emails, and social media channels.

In other words, the omnichannel will prevail in this day and age. Seamless connection alongside fully-integrated experience is the way to entice customers and improve a contact center’s customer experience. After all, customer-centric approaches are domninant in today’s world.

There are a lot of facts that can verify this information. According to a Contact Center Pipeline blog, in the US, utilization of email doubled and chat tripled year over year, each to 30% in 2018. Additionally, a 2018 report stated that US customers much preferred online chatting with an agent; the evaluation showed that 56% preferred chat interactions as opposed to other types of communication.   

Just a quick note, do not mistake omnichannel and multichannel; though similar, those two approaches have quite a clear distinction between each other. The omnichannel approach is much better because when a customer submits a query or complaint through multiple, different channels, one agent can receive all of those thanks to the integration and provide one resolution, as opposed to a multichannel wherein all the channels contacted will receive a ticket, therefore possibly inciting a conflict resolution.    

Chatbot and AI
Modernizing customer experience is done to make it more comfortable and convenient for the customers to reach out to a contact center. Today, self-service is attractive to customers; it makes them feel more in control of their situation, thus leading to more satisfaction when the problem is resolved. 

According to this Zendesk infographic, 67% of their respondents stated that preferred self-service over speaking to an agent. Additionally, 75% said that self-service is very convenient way to address customer service issues.

Factoring all of that, it can be said that chatbot, an AI (Artificial Intelligence) integration is the way to go for contact centers to adhere to the needs of the customers. The contact centers of today continue to transform their customer service strategies for the better. Primarily, this is to ensure that they deliver a smooth customer experience without a hitch. It is the most important thing businesses can do to increase new customers and make sure the old ones stay loyal.

Contact centers of the future that will utilize AI (artificial intelligence) will become much more prominent than those who will not. AI can anticipate queries well ahead before the customer will even say something based on certain contexts, which was tackled beautifully by Vonage.

Basically, the AI assisting the agent will determine the best possible steps to resolve a customer’s problem. And, it is wrong to think of AI taking over; on the contrary, in the upcoming years, humans  - both customers and agents – will be helped by AI to get the job done requiring less time. 

The three roles roles AI will play:

Prediction: looking through history and data stored, AI can help predict a customer’s needs even before the customer tells what his/her problem is.
Enhancing and understanding conversations: instant help will be provided to the customer efficiently.
Automation: put human agents to where they are truly needed; AI can handle the rest with utmost effectiveness and efficiency. 

An example of this are chatbots, they will help deliver smooth customer experience. Without the need for human intervention, chatbots are still always there for customers. 

As such, here are just some benefits chatbots can deliver in modernizing the customer experience:

• Response times quicker: FAQs, or frequently asked questions, are easily answered with the use of a chatbot. Contact centers don’t have to make customers wait in a long queue, therefore reducing frustrations.
• Cheaper costs: additional employees will not be necessary anymore with the help of chatbots, which can help decrease costs for businesses.
• Maximize agent’s skills: agents can focus on the much more important tasks at hand, which will improve their skills, much to the benefit of the company; chatbots will then handle everything else to ease an agent’s workload.
• Bulk chatting: one thing that can take up so much time is the sheer amount of customers calling, which can make a contact center’s process slow; with chatbots, they can focus on multiple conversations at the same time!

Conclusion
Customer preferences, through the years, have changed greatly. Customers’ demand for convenience has risen; learning about it will benefit contact centers greatly in providing a great customer experience. As a result, utilizing the power of technology in the form of digital channels and AI chatbots is the way in modernizing customer experience.

 
References:
https://www.kustomer.com/blog/3-keys-to-modernizing-customer-experience/

http://www.smartcustomerservice.com/Columns/Vendor-Views/Leveraging-Digital-Engagement-to-Modernize-the-Customer-Experience-126509.aspx

https://www.uctoday.com/contact-centre/chatbot-challenges-are-cc-chatbots-a-good-idea/#:~:text=The%20Benefits%20of%20Chatbots%20for%20the%20Contact%20Centre&text=Chatbots%20have%20the%20power%20to,always%20there%20for%20your%20customers.&text=Better%20employee%20experience%3A%20Chatbots%20can,their%20time%20on%20monotonous%20tasks