How do you choose the best channels for a multi-channel contact centre strategy?
There has been a revolution in the way customers want to interact with businesses, causing a fundamental shift in customer behaviour. You can no longer rely on customers dialling your number when they have a problem and talking to a customer service agent. There are hundreds of ways they could contact you and they may well try several different methods to get the information they want.
However, make no mistake, your customers are not aware that by clicking away from a webchat and picking up the phone that they are ‘changing contact channel’. They don’t care. All they are concerned with is getting their query answered in the easiest, quickest way possible. To maintain consistent customer service levels, it’s vital that you start thinking in terms of the customer journey and the conversation you are having with them, rather than the platform for that conversation.
Customers are evolving
Whilst ‘voice’ is still clearly represents the lion-share of contact-method, research shows that the percentage of customer interactions has dropped from 90.1% down to 73.2% between 2006 and 2013. Meanwhile, other channels are rising fast, such as email, webchat and social media.
There are business benefits to be had
- Cost savings – Once a multi-channel platform is in place, solving customer queries can be far lower cost. For instance, a webchat session is on average 40% lower cost than a phone call. Also, email interactions (which by their very nature are not real-time) are both low cost to take, whilst being flexible enough to fill in the ‘twiddling thumbs’ periods, when no live voice-calls or web-chats are being presented.
- Ability to offer support outside working hours – Channels like, Facebook, Twitter and Webchat enable you to offer customer services using agents who are at home and able to log in at more ‘unsocial’ hours
- Increased customer acquisition and rentention opportunities – If a customer is unwilling to wait for a ‘voice’ agent, but can be serviced via webchat, not only have you positioned yourself to retain that customer, but their perception of your customer service will be saved/raised.
- A happer, more engaged workforce – A recent survey by callcenter.co.uk showed 82% of call centres said that employee morale had increased since implementing a multi channel solution and nearly 100% said it was easier to attract and retain agents in a ‘more varied’ role.
You can increase your competitive advantage
If you’re considering a multi-channel environment, you can be sure your competitors are too. However, if they’ve not done it yet, you can differentiate yourself and attract/retain more customers.
Considerations for building your strategy
It’s vital that the contact channels you offer your customers are managed correctly, otherwise they can do more harm than good. Below are our top 6 considerations to help you match the correct channels to your intended customer experience:
Choose the right channels
Consider your customer’s perspective. Are you offering them the methods of communication each demographic is likely to use, or want to use. Put yourself in their shoes; what emotions are they likely to be feeling when contacting you? Can you offer them a good journey through to your agents?
Get buy-in from everyone
Involvement of the whole company is vital to the success of any multi-channel deployment. Different challenges will present themselves as you go through this process, such as concerns about managing new volumes of traffic, staff training and ongoing management
Have a clear strategy
Project forward to create systems and processed that are as flexible as possible, avoiding the typical pitfall of focussing purely on which channels you’re looking to deploy. Key factors that customers consider when deciding on which channel to use include ‘Ease of use, ‘availability’ and ‘effectiveness’. It’s important to be clear about why you are introducing each channel and how the ‘mix’ will work together within your business. Social Media channels (such as twitter) aren’t for everyone, so you should ensure you’re implementing any new channels for the right reasons, rather than because of hype or trends.
Choose the right technology
In order to avoid a management nightmare further down the line, it’s vital that you choose the right back-end system to effectively monitor and manage your multi-channel environment. Your system should be ‘cohesive’ and presented to your agents in a single desktop application to provide commonality and visibility of all previous transactions (regardless of channel-type). Avoid bolting-on channel after channel of different systems from different providers.
Staffing levels
By intelligently merging together the methods of contact across all agents, you will achieve improved levels of efficiency, whilst keeping employees engaged, challenged and interested. Try to avoid ‘pigeon holing’ agents based on their channel preference. For instance, if someone has a particular skill written-word responses, you should avoid heavily weighting that traffic to them, but offer them a mix of channels for variety sake.
On the flip side, if you have agents who feel challenged with written-word responses, it’s important to balance the split of traffic they receive, whilst giving them the tools to respond effectively.
Monitor, manage and assess
The old adage ‘if you can’t monitor it, you can’t manage it’ is incredibly relevant in the contact centre world. As you add new channels to your teams, do it gradually and assess how they are performing. Close monitoring on how many customers are using the new channels is vital, allowing you to translate it into tangible cost benefits to the business.
In Summary
It’s important to recognise that the contact centre environment is a constantly evolving entity, with new technologies being added and ‘trends’ being thrown at it. ‘Moving with the times’ is essential for progressive businesses who value customer service and customer perception, which ultimately lead to the bottom-line success of the business.
Implementing a multi-channel environment is an opportunity to positively impact on performance and focus on improving customer experience. At Marlin Communications, we are not tied to a single vendor, but provide best-of-breed solutions to our customers based on matching the right product to solve the challenges they face.
Our consultative approach separates us from the vast majority of the product-focussed contact centre industry and we will be pleased to share our knowledge and experience with you. If you would like to discuss your requirements, please get in touch.
