How Voice of the Customer Depends on the Contact Center Becoming the Voice of the Business
Despite access to more consumer data and insights, businesses are routinely failing to meet the expectations of today’s average individual, and are paying dearly for it. In fact, fifty-three percent of US consumers switched providers in 2014 due to poor customer service, fueling the aptly named and growing, $1.6 Trillion “Switching Economy”. And while 82 percent of companies claim to deliver superior customer experiences, only 8 percent of consumers agree, highlighting just how poorly the majority of today’s providers are listening to their client-base.
VOICE OF THE BUSINESS TO HELP DRIVE VOICE OF THE CUSTOMER
As the emphasis on the customer experience continues to drive business initiatives and strategy, contact centers are increasingly becoming the face of the enterprise. And yet, many organizations still assign and segment contact centers to specific departments (46% under Customer Service, 26% under Operations, 12% under C-Level units, 10% under Marketing, and 5% under IT), effectively complicating the ability to deliver upon a unified company message while limiting a rep’s insight into the complete history of any single individual. But any successful VOC program is contingent on a business allowing for a more integrated and collaborative environment to exist across departments to facilitate and combine the various customer data points stored within each, with the contact center acting as the central nerve system to it all. By giving reps access to information across all aspects of the business, and treating the contact center as its own entity, the ability to deliver on the customer experience clients have come to expect becomes much more feasible. In short, VOC is contingent on the unification of all the data management systems a company may be subscribed to (CRM, Ticketing, WFM, etc.), while allowing contact center reps to be multi-faceted in the services they can provide. If realtors always claim location, location, location, than VOC advocates should be screaming integration, integration, integration.
A SINGLE PLATFORM FOR THE MULTICHANNEL CUSTOMER
While voice still remains the dominant mode of communication, with 98 percent utilization amongst businesses, alternative means of communication are playing an increasingly important role, with a direct impact on VOC. In fact, today’s average consumer will use three or more channels to communicate with a business, including email, text, chat, social media, and even video. But while organizations accept the importance of maintaining multiple forms of communication for inbound, outbound, and blended initiatives, many do so in a disjointed fashion. Unfortunately, however, it is no longer sufficient to simply offer different channel options but rather expected to offer them all, with each performing at equally high levels and interchangeably to help maintain a single VOC experience. It is for that very reason successful contact centers must adopt a single, multichannel communication platform to help merge the various channels and seamlessly interpret a customer’s complete needs and wants. And while technology will play a significant role, the manner in which the business creates, implements, and oversees the approach will be equally crucial to any successes.
COACH RATHER THAN TRAIN
Despite the emphasis on technology to help drive and meet the needs of modern-day clients, the overall success of any VOC approach will ultimately always be dependent on the reps delivering the service. And yet many businesses generally limit the development of their teams to basic training provided at the beginning of employment with an expectation organic growth will occur naturally over time. However, studies have shown such tactics to be limited and often ineffective. Lasting impacts on the quality and productivity of an organization’s reps and their abilities to deliver a superior level of customer service rests in the ability to actively coach in real-time those manning the frontlines using speech analytics, performance reporting, active feedback, and workforce optimization. In fact, the proper combination of both training and coaching can improve overall rep productivity by as much as 88 percent. In short, investing in technology without a correlated investment in the individuals expected to use the solutions will only achieve partial results at the expense of delivering the proper level of VOC-driven service.
As businesses increasingly seek to achieve the levels of customer service consumers expect, the need to properly hear those they care to serve will be the determining factor dictating who will ultimately profit. The key lies in the ability to first achieve a single voice-of-the-business to facilitate and understand the true voice of the customer. 
3CLogic is a leading provider of cloud-based contact center solutions. Offering next-generation multichannel communications, business intelligence, dynamic scripting, as well as seamless third-party integrations, we built our products to meet today’s needs and tomorrow’s challenges.
To learn more visit: www.3clogic.com