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1. Connect with them on their terms

   Every customer has different schedules, preferences, and lifestyles. What works best for one person may not work for another. Be sure you’re meeting the needs and preferences of your varied customers by offering omnichannel capabilities in your contact center. Providing multiple contact options shows your customers that you care about them.

   What is an omnichannel contact center?

   An omnichannel contact center offers multiple channels for your customers to connect through. For example, in addition to voice, an omnichannel contact center may provide options to connect through email, webchat, SMS, and/or social media.

   The additional key characteristic that sets an omnichannel contact center apart from a multi-channel contact center is that the channels are all connected and share context to provide more seamless customer experiences.

   Benefits of an omnichannel contact center:

   • Provide convenience for customers – Customers can reach the organization through their choice of channels.
   • Provide consistent experiences – When all channels are handled by the same agents on the same platform with access to the same information, customers know what to expect, no matter what channel they use.
   • Reduce training needs – Since agents can handle all interactions on the same platform, they don’t need to be trained on multiple platforms, saving the organization money on training costs.

2. Be mindful of their time

   Nobody feels appreciated when they have to spend excessive time waiting for attention. You can help keep your customers’ time in queue short by paying attention to historical reports and integrating with workforce management software to ensure your contact center is appropriately staffed at peak times. You can also offer call-back options so customers can focus on other tasks until an agent is available, rather than waiting around on the phone.

   What is a workforce management integration?

   Workforce management (WFM) software helps businesses optimize productivity by forecasting staffing needs and creating staff schedules to meet those needs. When a WFM tool is integrated with a contact center, the WFM tool automatically ingests contact center data to forecast agent demand and schedule agents accordingly.

   Benefits of a workforce management integration:

   • Reduce wait time – Demand-based staffing ensures appropriate staffing levels to avoid excessive wait times.
   • Reduce costs – A WFM integration helps prevent wasting money on over-staffing.
   • Improve agent experiences – Ensuring appropriate staffing levels helps ensure appropriate workloads for agents, minimizing the risk of extra stress and burnout.

3. Provide personalized service

   Providing personalized service helps ensure that each customer feels valued as a person rather than just another transaction. Such personalized service can be accomplished with a CRM integration. Integrating your contact center with a  CRM system lets agents see relevant information about customers as soon as an interaction comes in. This allows them to greet customers by name, ask them how they’re enjoying their last purchase, and more.

   What is a CRM integration?

   Customer relationship management, or CRM, software is used by businesses to store and manage information related to their existing and prospective customers.

   When a CRM system is integrated with contact center software, each tool provides additional features and benefits to the other.

   For example, as soon as a customer reaches out to a contact center, their CRM contact page is instantly delivered to the handling agent, providing context to speed up resolution time.

   In the case of outbound communications, agents can simply click to call a contact from their CRM page, saving time and reducing dialing errors.

   Benefits of a CRM integration:

   • Reduce call duration – Screen pops save time on customer and problem identification, allowing agents to address the customer’s inquiry sooner.
   • Reduce misdials – Click-to-call capabilities prevent human dialing errors when making outbound calls.
   • Improve customer experiences – Providing agents with instant access to customer details empowers them to provide more personalized service.

4. Earn and maintain their trust

   When customers provide sensitive information over the phone, they’re placing a great deal of trust in your business to keep their information secure. Make sure their trust is justified by choosing a contact center with security certifications such as SOC 2 and PCI compliance.

   What is a PCI-compliant solution?

   PCI-DSS stands for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. It is a set of security requirements that help to ensure that payment card data is kept secure. If a solution, such as a contact center, is PCI-compliant, that means that customers can trust that their data is being handled securely when they provide their credit card details.

   Benefits of PCI-compliant payment solutions:

   • Enhance security – PCI compliance helps to ensure the security of data processed in your contact center.
   • Increase customer trust and loyalty – Handling data securely prevents the loss of your customers’ trust and makes them more likely to remain loyal to your organization.
   • Reduce human error – Automating payment processing improves accuracy by eliminating the need for agents to manually enter credit card numbers.

5. Be there for them

   One of the best ways to make a person feel loved is by being there for them whenever they need you. Of course, it’s often not realistic to keep a business’s contact center staffed 24/7. However, you can still be there for your customers 24/7 by adding a chatbot to your contact center that can provide answers to frequently asked questions regarding topics like business hours, pricing, or account information.

   What is a chatbot?

   A chatbot engages in digital conversations with humans. Chatbots allow organizations to provide 24/7 service without requiring their contact center to be staffed the whole time. Chatbots can perform a wide variety of tasks, depending on the organization’s preferences and the level of technology powering them.

   Benefits of chatbots:

   • Extend service hours – Chatbots can handle incoming interactions during unstaffed hours, allowing businesses to extend service hours without increasing hiring.
   • Improve agent productivity – Chatbots handle routine inquiries so agents’ time can be better used for more complex inquiries.
   • Reduce wait times – Offloading some inquiries to a chatbot reduces the number of people in queue for a live agent, thus reducing wait times.

6. Pay attention to their feelings

   Open communication is important to any relationship. This is true of the relationships between businesses and customers as well. Implementing survey tools in your contact center enables you to check in with your customers to make sure they’re feeling heard and their needs are being met. It also lets you know if there are problems with your service that you need to address, ultimately leading to better service.

   What is a contact center survey?

   A contact center survey is a questionnaire completed by an individual before, during, or after their interaction with a contact center. They often include questions about the customer’s level of satisfaction with the experience.

   Benefits of contact center surveys:

   • Improve customer experiences – Surveys enable organizations to gather valuable feedback from their customers that can then be implemented to improve experiences.
   • Increase customer retention – By listening to your customers and learning how to improve their experiences, you can maximize the number of customers you retain after their first transaction.
   • Save agents’ time – Automating surveys prevents agents from needing to spend time conducting them manually.

By keeping these ideas in mind, you can make sure your customers feel loved and valued not only on Valentine’s Day, but every day of the year. Want to keep your customer relationships strong year-round? Check out our blogs on the Four Pillars of Customer Service: Getting Connected, Process Orchestration, Knowledge and Insights, and Resource Management.

Happy Valentine’s Day from ComputerTalk!