Embracing the Change: The Ever-Evolving Multichannel World
What does multichannel mean for today’s contact centre? Read on for an insider’s view.
It’s no secret that the contact centre has long moved on from its phone-exclusive days of times past. Once merely a “call centre,” today’s customer service contact centre is expected to address customer issues on as many channels as on your cable TV. But in the technology age when it seems that every week there is a new method of communication, what’s a contact centre to do to keep from being outdated? Here’s a closer look at what multichannel means for contact centres today and how you can stay hip to the needs of 21st century customers.
Multichannel Is Changing
If you thought that multichannel meant simply throwing email services and SMS into your otherwise phone-centric contact centre, you’re falling behind the times. Multichannel is changing, and it’s easy to understand why so many companies find it difficult to embrace. We’ve progressed from using fax to email to SMS and beyond, but the pace in which channels are being created is much faster today than ever before. Now, there are new channels popping up all the time, and even for the average person, keeping up can prove to be a challenge.
And yet, some companies are doing it right. Facebook Messenger has long been used by individual users as a chat service. Facebook recently announced that Messenger will be integrated with businesses as a method of communicating with and serving customers in real time. Messenger is already a popular method of chatting, and users are comfortable meeting businesses on a channel they’re familiar with. As you can imagine, companies are quickly jumping on board to take advantage of Facebook’s Business Messenger channel.
Multichannel Practice in the Contact Centre
According to the Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report, if digital interactions continue to rise at the current rate, they will overtake voice in only two years. So what can contact centres today do to embrace multichannel without getting in over their heads? Here’s a checklist of practices that can help contact centres keep up with the changing times.
Regularly Embrace New Channels
Already, 64 percent of consumers prefer to use texting rather than voice for their customer service needs, according to OneReach. When new channels pop up that users embrace, stay right along with them.
Meet Customers Where They Are
By providing your customers with options for contact depending on their preferences, you can meet them where they prefer to get customer service, whether it’s email, live chat, phone or an alternate channel.
Integrate Channels for a Seamless Transition
Omnichannel customer service generally means keeping a unified record of each customer interaction with your business, across channels. In the multichannel contact centre, it’s important that customers can switch channels without having to start from square one.
Make It Effortless
The Effortless Experience states that 96 percent of customers who experience inconveniences, such as channel switching without a record of their previous interaction or contacting a business multiple times before getting a response, go on to exhibit less brand loyalty. This means that every time you inconvenience the customer, you risk losing them.
Set Expected Reply Times
If you can’t staff your contact centre to allow for instant response on any channel, state your expected reply times so customers know what to anticipate.
Keep Agents Happy
Happy agents mean happy customers. When it comes to multichannel, it’s just as important to keep agents engaged on live chat and email services as it is over the phone.
Focus on Guidance
If you struggle to accommodate the volume of contacts your centre is receiving on a breadth of channels, focus on guiding customers to the channels that work for you. You can initially prompt customers to check your self-service resources before guiding them to another option. Make sure to staff the channels you do offer, adequately.
Track Separate Metrics for Each Channel
By tracking your metrics on each individual channel rather than comprehensively, you can gain a better understanding of which channels are working for you and why. After a couple of months, assess what you can improve.
By keeping up with the multichannel world in the contact centre, you can help ensure that your customers’ needs are being met. Effectively delivering excellent customer service on multiple channels is one of the best ways that businesses today develop brand loyalty. Remember that multichannel isn’t going anywhere, and will continue to evolve as the focus of contact centres when it comes to B2C communication. Interested in learning more about what multichannel means in the contact centre? Download our free white paper.
