5 Reasons to Employ Omni Channel Contact Center Technology

What if there were a single TV channel or app that carried everything you wanted to watch?

From "Game of Thrones" and "Orange is the New Black" to QVC infomercials and live basketball games, it wouldn't require navigating a bunch of different services or flipping through channels. Some companies have already tried to build this type of all-in-one experience. For example, Apple's TV app keeps track of what users watch across numerous apps and then makes recommendations and suggestions, although it doesn't work with every service - most notably Netflix - and also requires a la carte content purchases instead of a single subscription.

In omnichannel contact center software, enterprises and small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have an equivalent of this hypothetical Everything Channel for their customer-facing communications. A modern omnichannel platform enables seamless interactions across all major touch points in a customer journey, including:

• Live chat
• Email
• Voice calls
• SMS
• Instant messages
• Social media

By consolidating so much functionality into one cloud-based solution, organizations with an omnichannel contact center in place are well-equipped to keep customers satisfied and agents engaged. Everyone wins with an upgrade to omnichannel. All interactions go through a single platform.

Still, many companies have yet to adopt the technology, instead relying on traditional contact centers built around voice. Such low adoption represents a major missed opportunity to reach customers wherever they are, considering that 80% of all customer interactions begin on a non-voice channel and most customers use three or more channels.

With these numbers in mind, let's explore some additional reasons to think about implementing an omnichannel contact center, from reducing agent turnover to delivering a more consistent experience.

1. A Smoother Customer Journey, Leading to More Conversions

Mapping and understanding the customer journey is among the most important steps in maximizing revenue. If you can't understand what a typical customer thinks and how they're likely to engage with your company, you can't convert them. Creating a reliable stream of conversions is also much easier with omnichannel contact center solutions, which support the right interactions, at the right time, on the right channels.

Say your company operates an online store selling specialty footwear. When someone visits your site, they will probably browse the products and perhaps reach out via live chat if they have any questions. Web chat is a must-have because it allows customers to multi-task.

During the actual ordering process, they might call if they run into problems. After the purchase, they will receive an email confirming the order, which they might reply to with questions. Another phone call could happen if a refund is requested.

Multiple channels will routinely come into play - and being able to effectively engage a customer across all of them is the ticket to better satisfaction, which shows up in the bottom line. A 2016 McKinsey study found that every 10-point increase in a customer's satisfaction rating translates into 2-3% higher revenue.

2. Less Agent Turnover and More Predictable Operations

Call centers have typically had very high turnover rates, estimated between 30-40% per year. This isn't surprising, as the work is challenging and has only become more difficult as the number of possible contact channels has proliferated, requiring competency across different modes of communication.

An omnichannel solution provides relief, not only through the consolidation of channels into a common interface but also in the implementation of multiple features that improve usability. For example, Telesystem's omnichannel platform gives agents a pop-up window populated with all the historical information on a customer when they make a voice call. This speeds up interactions and saves agents the trouble of hunting for this basic data or asking customers to repeat it even after that they have supplied it at another point in their journey - a common source of annoyance.

Agents can also tap into sophisticated capabilities built into the omnichannel solution, including call recording and automatic logging of interactions to compatible customer relationship management software such as Zendesk and Microsoft Dynamics. The upshot is more context around each engagement, which leads to more productive conversations, less confusion and a better overall experience for everyone involved.

3. Scalable and Flexible Technology

Omnichannel contact center software harnesses the power of the cloud. On a technical level, it's a major upgrade from the premises-based contact centers of the past, which were very rigid and difficult to upgrade even as operational requirements evolved.

Conventional contact centers usually have high fixed costs, in the form of upfront expenses for equipment and regular upgrades to keep their technologies up-to-date. Plus, if there are any technical hiccups, it's IT's responsibility to identify the problem and come up with a solution.

As cloud-based services, omnichannel contact centers are much more manageable. The cloud service provider oversees all of the infrastructure behind the scenes, applying patches and upgrades as needed, normally at no extra cost. Meanwhile, the user-facing experience is highly streamlined. Agents usually don't have to do anything except launch an application or open a browser window and they can be confident that they are running the latest and most secure version of the platform.

4. Reduced Expenses for Better Functionality

We mentioned above how contact centers have traditionally required significant capital expenditures (CAPEX), forcing their operators to invest a lot of money into upkeep and upgrades. This CAPEX setup is not cheap.

More capacity may need to be purchased to keep up with a sudden surge in the volume of customers reaching out to your company. You might also end up overbuying since some amount of guesswork is involved and you might not always be able to perfectly match supply with demand.

An omnichannel contact center in the cloud doesn't place these constraints on your operations. Telesystem's solution uses concurrent licensing models so you pay only for what you actually use. Procuring additional resources or changing key configurations is quick and straightforward. In this way, the omnichannel contact center is highly scalable, affordable to operate and more fully featured than its predecessors.

5. Automation and analytics

An omnichannel contact center isn't just a bunch of different applications placed side by side in one place. It binds its components together with automation, analytics and other advanced capabilities that allow agents and managers to understand important trends in customer service and how to respond accordingly.

Predictive analytics provide insights into how cases with similar intent were resolved, while automated routing with global queuing ensures that calls go to the best available agent at any time of the day. Multi-language IVR can be configured and adjusted with different prompts that recognize users via biometrics and natural language processing.

Through these features and other, omnichannel technology continuously works for you in the background, getting better with time and supporting your organization in its drive toward better customer service.

Making the giant leap to omnichannel contact center technology

Last but certainly not least, a cloud-based omni channel contact center is only as dependable as its underlying infrastructure. At Telesystem, we host our solution in a redundant and secure cloud environment, with expert support to help you navigate any issues that arise. It's an omni channel platform you can trust to keep your business running.