Embracing the Customer Service Megatrends of 2012
Photo Courtesy of Victor1558
Megatrend 1: Customer is royalty; their wish must be your command
+ They want easy and multiple ways of finding information, buying products, and getting support.
+ They need both an online presence that is available 24×7 and the option to call or visit.
+ They would like to receive quick, consistent, accurate service through all these interaction channels in a way that makes them come back for more.
+ They want you to “recognize” them at every contact point.
+ They would like you to tell them how they can get more value out of products they’ve bought, how to troubleshoot, and even what else they could buy.
The solution: Think like your customers and put together a road map for transforming your contact center in the light of changing customer expectations.
Megatrend 2: Change is the only constant with mergers, acquisitions, consolidation, outsourcing, and offshoring
In industries such as financial services, telecommunications, retail, and health care, businesses are being re-architected at a dizzying pace.
The solution: Establish your contact center as the performance pace setter and use empowering tools such as centralized knowledge based content that can be accessed in personal and flexible ways.
Megatrend 3: Your agents need 20 pound megabrains to keep up with product proliferation
Product proliferation can lead to poor customer service.
The solution: Create an adaptive, easy to use knowledge base (KB) and make the 80-20 rule your guiding star. That is, contact centers usually find a small number of topics (20%) that generate most of the inquiries (80%). Find out what these topics are.
Megatrend 4: There are more devices than people
Gartner expects smart phones to account for 45.5 percent of all mobile phone sales in 2013, compared to just 9 percent in 2008. Mobile and social channels are also driving each other’s growth with Juniper Research expecting mobile social networking users to grow from 54 million in 2008 to 730 million in 2013.
The solution: Differentiate your business by providing exceptional mobile customer experiences.
Megatrend 5: Your customers are getting social; get in front of the parade
Consumers are increasingly discussing your brand online. This free-flowing viral conversation is a challenge and opportunity for your business.
The solution: Build a community of passionate customers, and harvest their knowledge.
Photo courtesy of 401K
Megatrend 6: Green is the new black; just do it
You can significantly improve the energy footprint of your company by pursuing a number of proven business strategies that have significant “green” implications.
The solution: Digitize and web-enable customer interactions. Reduce unwarranted field service and product exchanges using knowledge management.
Megatrend 7: The buck stops at your desk; service levels and compliance are your headaches
You are responsible for your contact center processes and what your agents say, do, and don’t do. Compliance is a major hot button in many regulated industries and it has become a bigger issue today due to corporate scandals and a wave of new corporate and privacy regulations.
The solution: Measure and track the activities in your core and extended contact center and manage compliance.
Megatrend 8: Show me the money, says your CEO
Contact center executives are often to blame, when all they talk about are rising contact center costs.
The solutions:
+ Deliver cost savings and boost revenue by setting up a multichannel customer interaction hub, powered by a common knowledge and workflow platform, along with implementing the right processes and incentives.
+ Enhance customer loyalty by arming the agent with best-practice conversations in contextual selling through a knowledge-powered conversation engine.
These megatrends have swept businesses in general and contact centers in particular. They have created enormous opportunities. Putting these solutions to use will certainly add value to your business!
This condensed White Paper courtesy of eGain’s 2012 Update, “Contact Center and Web Customer Experience Megatrends and Next Practices.”
eGain is the leading provider of cloud and on-premise customer interaction software for sales and service.
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