Best Practices To Meet Users’ Digital Expectations

User expectations are changing and give a higher priority to the digital commitment to companies. They want the answers to their queries in real time and through any of the channels they have chosen (social networks, email, telephone, live chat…).

Best Practices To Meet Users’ Digital Expectations 

1) Centralized management of digital interactions in the call center

Today, in most companies, ownership of digital channels is isolated outside the call center, usually in marketing. There are multiple challenges when managed in this way:

• It does not scale. Most marketing teams dedicate a small number of people to monitor digital channels to protect the reputation of the brand. It is necessary to ensure that team members are sufficient to deal with the real problems that users face.
• Users hire companies for a wide variety of issues related to customer service. The marketing staff assigned to monitor these channels must have the necessary skills to provide timely and complete responses.
• The marketing approach when monitoring digital channels is the reputation of the brand, not the service. However, this may affect it, because users who access the company through these channels are unlikely to get the answers they want properly.

On the contrary, when customer service has user monitoring and participation through digital channels, as part of an omnichannel customer service effort, these problems are addressed.

Customer service has staff at scale, is user-focused, trained to efficiently deal with their problems, can manage digital omnichannel interactions first, including voice, and can provide sales and marketing information to ensure there are no organizational silos.

2) Add Support For Digital Messaging And Real-time Channels

The support of digital channels can be technically difficult, as it may lack standards. Continuous news arrives on the market daily, and its use may vary according to demography (for example, preferences may vary for younger users versus older users).

Therefore, a solution is needed that facilitates the support of all channels natively, including voice and digital channels. It must be simple to activate new channels through reintegrated capabilities, and it must be cost effective to allow all agents to manage combined interactions and easily move between channels.

3) Provide A Unified Inbox For All Channels

Ensuring a simple and efficient agent experience to manage omnichannel digital-first interactions is critical. A unified inbox for all channels provides:

• A single interface: an inbox for all interactions.
• A native experience: each messaging platform maintains its native characteristics.
• Agents in control: they work in a natural flow, with dynamic prioritization.
• Breaking silos: between voice and digital agents to create combined and omnichannel agents that improve operational efficiency.

4) Provide Context Agents To Interactions In All Channels

As agents are prepared to handle the combined interactions, they must have a context that is maintained through the customer journey and digital channels.

A user file satisfies this need, by providing the complete context thanks to the query of data from the CRM immediate access to its history of interactions with the company.

5) Allow Users To Move Through Voice, Digital And Messaging Channels

By admitting omnichannel interactions, users expect to move smoothly through any channel. In fact, doing so guarantees the most efficient and cost effective way to solve many problems.

Using self-service channels that empower users to solve basic tasks, and allow them to switch to a chat and even a phone call when they have more complex queries or have problems is essential.

Various studies show that users want the flexibility to interact with companies through their channels of choice, and expect them to direct them to the most efficient way to address their question.

The companies that offer these facilities of movement between channels and without interruptions will fulfill the digital expectations of the users.

6) Ensure Omnichannel Management In All Call Center Operations

The support of the omnichannel interactions of first digital level with the users extends well beyond the agent and must be managed in an integral way in all the operations of the contact center. For effective management, all of these systems must run smoothly on all channels.

7) Incorporate Artificial Intelligence Capabilities For Self-service

Self-service capabilities driven by artificial intelligence should be used to optimize digital channels. Chatbots, for example, provide contention for digital channels just like the IVR for voice.