Real-Time Resolution for the Modern Contact Center
March 27, 2017
Respecting Your Customers’ Time While Making Your Customers Happier Faster
Guest Blog by Blair Pleasant, COMMfusion LLC & UCStrategies
Do you respect your customers’ time? When it comes to customer service and customer engagement, does your contact center deploy technologies and solutions that reduce the time that customers wait on hold, speak with an agent, wait for a response, or get their issues resolved?
How can businesses provide a great customer engagement experience that lets customers know that they are truly valued and that their time is respected? We’ve been hearing about First Call Resolution (FCR) for several years, but how about taking that one step further to “Real Time Resolution?” On Wednesday March 29 at 3:00, I’ll be at the Five9 booth at Enterprise Connect talking about ways to achieve Real-Time Resolution, notably:
- Enabling agents to quickly and effectively identify and reach out to subject matter experts (SMEs) in order to respond to customers’ inquiries while the customer is still on the line, and even have the SME speak with the customer directly;
- Proactively assisting the customer while they’re browsing your website through Web Engagement.
Moving to Real-Time Resolution Using Subject Matter Experts
In most cases, contact center agents have the information and knowledge they need to provide an answer or resolve an issue when a customer calls or contacts them. However, over 10% of all telephone inquiries handled by contact center agents require some sort of assistance from subject matter experts in various parts of the organization. For example, an agent may need to reach out to a product specialist to answer a technical question about a product, or to someone in marketing about a new promotion. Generally, when the agent doesn’t have the information they need, they either put the customer on hold or tell the customer that they’ll call them back after they get the information, in which time the customer may go to a competitor instead. The result is lengthy calls and multiple customer interactions, which can be costly to the organization.
Today, with the use of UC tools like presence and IM, when an agent needs to get additional information in order to answer a customer’s question, they can use presence to see which subject matter experts are available, and send an IM to ask an available expert for information while on the call with the customer.
This is made possible when contact center solutions are integrated with UC solutions. For example, by integrating Five9’s Virtual Contact Center with Microsoft Skype for Business, contact center agents can identify and connect with the necessary experts to answer customers’ questions in real time while the customer is still on the line.
Moving to Real-Time Resolution Using Web Engagement
These days, if a customer or consumer has a question, needs support, or wants to purchase something, they begin their journey on a company’s website. Companies can turn these experiences into real-time interactions resulting in real-time resolution with the use of web engagement, omnichannel, and customer journey analytics tools. Using tools that gather and analyze a customer’s activity as they browse a company’s website, the agent can view the customer’s activity on their screen in real time as the customer moves from page to page and proactively reach out to the customer to initiate a chat interaction. Proactively reaching out to the customer, saves the customer time searching for information, providing real-time resolution. In addition, it prevents the customer from having to call in to the contact center, which is more costly to the organization.
Respecting Your Customers’ Time While Making Your Customers Happier Faster
Your customers’ time is valuable, and serving your customers more quickly and effectively through the use of subject matter experts and proactive web engagement will lead to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty, as well as increased sales and revenues. Why settle for first contact resolution when you can have real time resolution?
Come to Five9’s booth at Enterprise Connect on Wednesday, March 29 at 3:00 to hear more about ways to achieve Real-Time Resolution.
