TAKE THE EFFORT OUT OF CUSTOMER SERVICE WITH AN INTELLIGENT OMNI‑CHANNEL CONTACT CENTER
“Consumers of all generations demand effortless service. They want to use self-service communication channels to quickly get answers to their questions; move between communication channels during a customer service interaction and not have to restart the conversation; be proactively engaged at a point of need; and, most importantly, ensure companies value their time.”1 Forrester’s Kate Leggett put it in a nutshell what it takes to take the effort out of customer service. It takes several key ingredients for an omni-channel contact center to deliver against that promise:
ELIMINATE CUSTOMER SERVICE BORDERS
Many company leaders mistakenly use the terms multi-channel and omni-channel interchangeably. “Multi” simply denotes a variety of channels. Strike it from your vocabulary. Focus on achieving an omni-channel experience: a truly consistent customer service process across all channels. Most customers engage with a brand on an average of two to three channels, according to John Carroll, CEO of The Service Council; telephone and email are the top choices with social media rising in importance. A customer should be able to start a service interaction on the phone, switch to Twitter, and finally resolve the issue in the store with ease. That requires investment in data integration, tools, and training.
DON’T HYPER-FOCUS ON DELIGHTING YOUR CUSTOMERS
No one reaches out to customer service when things are going well. They just want to get something resolved as quickly as possible. Too many companies believe they need to deliver an exceptional customer service experience, when what they really need to do is solve their problem. Let go of the myth of excellence, and focus on enabling customer service professionals to provide answers quickly. Decision trees and global search functions that enable agents to quickly locate common solutions are a good start. But in your attempt to make the service interaction effortless, don’t forget that it also has to be effective.
QUIT FIGHTING FIRES
Customer service has traditionally been a reactive arm of the corporation, responding to problems only as they arise. Today, that’s table stakes. Customer service needs to be proactive. Thanks to emerging technologies in the areas of big data, real-time analytics, and the Internet of Things, that’s possible. Machine-to-machine data can enable companies to perform maintenance before a product breaks down or replace a component before it fails. That will require a change of mindset. Customer agents are used to sitting back and waiting for the next call. That aspect of the job won’t go away. But by applying the right technology and integrating it with the service experience, reaction will be the exception not the norm.
SHUTTER YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA GROUP
There are 500 million tweets every day. Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Everyone with a customer service issue potentially has a mass audience. Social media is so important to customer service today that it can no longer afford to be a standalone function. So why close your social media function? Because it should be integrated into customer service and marketing processes instead. Social needs to be owned by customer service or marketing and integrated with the enterprise. It can’t be a disconnected function working in isolation.
DON’T IMPLEMENT SELF‑SERVICE TO CUT COSTS
Directing customers to solve their own customer service issues is a great way to cut costs fast—and also a fast way to tick customers off. It’s true the self-service options are important. Three out of four customers said that self-service was a convenient way to address customer service issues. Additionally, 67 percent said they preferred self-service to speaking to a company representative. Customers want to be able to help themselves. Who wants to wait on hold if you don’t have to? But what if you do have to? Not everything can be addressed—or addressed easily—via self-service. And some customers will never want to take the do-it-yourself route. It’s important to remember that self-service options have to be easy, pleasant, and additional customer service channel and never the only option for resolution. 
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1 “Demands For Effortless Service Must Influence Your Customer Strategy”, Forrester, June 10, 2014