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Why the ‘experience economy’ makes Call Center-as-a-Service a Must

April 10, 2019

Regardless of the size of your business or industry, you cannot underestimate the power of positive customer experience. Delighting a customer and delivering exceptional customer service has the power to turn a ‘first customer’ into a ‘forever customer.’ Not to mention, it has the potential to amplify your positive message across many audiences, thanks to social media. On the flip side, getting customer service wrong can be equally, if not more, impactful. The good news is that today’s savvy and demanding customers are willing to pay up to 16% more for top-notch service. David Clarke, PwC principal, and experience consulting leader says it best:

“CMOs take note: our research revealed that 65% of U.S. consumers find a positive brand experience to be more influential than great advertising. The ‘Experience Economy’ has ushered in a new B2C mindset, steering brands beyond emphasizing products and services to selling rich consumer experiences.” (Source: David Clarke)

Putting customers in charge

In the ‘experience economy,’ businesses need to focus on delivering exceptional service during all phases of the customer lifecycle, including during call center customer interactions. But, how can businesses ensure customers receive the ultimate experience from your call center? An experience that builds loyalty, supports spending more, and an experience that reduces customer attrition? It starts with covering the basics, and asking yourself these questions:

  1. How easy is it for customers to gain access? Can customers quickly and simply make a purchase, make contact to ask questions, complain, or fix a problem?
  2. What about the speed of access? It’s important to look at service levels and minimize the hoops customers have to jump through to help. For example, ‘how many times do callers have to enter their name and account number, etc.? Or if they start with an online chat, will the agent that calls them back understand the issue, or will they have to retell their story?
  3. What’s the quality of interaction? This category is a little more intangible but ask, ‘can customers get done what they wanted to efficiently and logically?’ These factors can help determine the quality of customer interaction.

Why a hosted call center makes sense

To deliver the highest levels of customer service organizations require contact center solutions that streamline customer service operations while minimizing capital expenses. But managing these imperatives with a traditional call center is a tremendous challenge. That’s why more companies are turning to cloud-based call center solutions.

Hosted call center solutions, or call center-as-a-service solutions, are helping companies zero-in on delivering enhanced customer experiences across all channels, without breaking the bank.  Advanced call routing and reporting options enable call quality management and provide visibility into call activity and deliver agent performance reports. By improving response times, effective call routing capabilities, and offering easy access to account data, businesses can meet their objectives for delivering simplified access to customer service that’s highly efficient and delivers high-quality interactions. Other benefits of  hosted call center solution:

  • Reduced Costs – As a subscription-based service, organizations get access to a reliable, cost-effective contact center solution that reduces costs and improves customer interactions.
  • Use analytics to improve service – A hosted call center solution can provide greater customer intelligence and agent performance metrics to optimize experiences. Measure things like trending call volumes, percentage of time a caller is ‘in-queue,’ how much time agents spend talking to callers, ‘after-call’ work – all to improve accountability and improve agent performance.
  • Take a multi-channel approach – With advanced call center features, teams can offer a variety of contact options such as voice, chat, and email to build stronger relationships.
  • Improved scalability – Need to add agents with specialized skills? Or to ramp up for a new product release? Leveraging a contact center-as-a service provides much more flexibility and scalability not available with on-premise based phone offerings.

Creating your ‘forever customers’

What truly makes for good customer experience? Analysts tell us it’s speed, convenience, consistency, and friendliness. (Source: PWC).  But it also takes empowering agents to improvise and make decisions that can positively impact customers. When agents can create real connections with customers using technology they can deliver personalized customer experiences that, in turn, directly impact revenue. Can your call center do that? If not, talk to CTG. We’ve helped hundreds of SMBs and small enterprise customers implement a holistic hosted call center solution that’s cost-effective, can enhance call agent productivity, and can empower you to improve customer service. Don’t wait!


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