Delivering a Personalized, Effortless, Connected CX

SPONSORED BY UPSTREAM WORKS

Personalized Omnichannel Customer Experience
Illustration by Gina Park for Pipeline

People today may choose to communicate with organizations across various channels including phone, email, chat, SMS, social and walk-ins. When they do reach out, they expect to receive the same level of service regardless of which channel they’re using. That service needs be simple, efficient, personalized and consistent—at any place and any time. Businesses who deliver on that expectation reap the benefits—increased satisfaction, deeper engagement and improved loyalty.

What are the strategies needed to deliver a CX that meets customer expectations?

1. Provide true omnichannel

Customers will choose an engagement method that works best for them wherever they are and whatever they’re doing. Phone, email, web chat, SMS, social, face-to-face—whatever the channel preference, the organization must be equipped to deliver. Deliver, it is worth noting, means recognizing the customer and the issue, while engaging and helping them with the same standards of excellence across all channels.

2. Personalize the experience

Be ready to provide a feeling of recognition and appreciation by being able to reference the customer’s past interactions and offer them the right options at the right moment. This means having instant visibility into the full customer journey. With this information, the organization can determine what the customer will want to do next and be proactive.

3. Resolve issues on the first contact

The notion of the “customer journey” is one of the biggest customer engagement buzzwords. Today’s customer experiences cannot be viewed as a series of disparate, disconnected interactions; they must be viewed as part of a continuous, wholly integrated journey. One needs to be careful, however, not to confuse acceptance of the journey concept with tolerance of excessive interactions. The goal should always be to resolve an issue on the first contact.

4. Minimize customer effort

Quick resolution is still of paramount concern for both customers and organizations. Customers do not want to be rushed off the line before their problem is solved, nor do they want to spend any more time or exert any more effort than is required in solving their problem. Gaps that create inefficiencies and increase effort—agents requiring customers to repeat information following transfers, lack of data about the customer’s past interactions, cumbersome business systems—are gaps that drive dissatisfaction.

5. Evolve with the times

Customers change. Market conditions change. Channels change. When such change occurs, customers demand that the businesses serving them evolve accordingly. If customers become comfortable using a new contact channel, they expect the organization not only to offer that channel but to do so with the same commitment to a seamless, personalized and proactive experience that is offered on the other channels.

Upstream Works for Finesse, an omnichannel agent workspace with management simplicity, is designed for the fully integrated customer journey and fosters this smart, simple and connected customer experience. Organizations that have implemented the solution have enjoyed very valuable benefits—on both sides of the interaction. Agents are more productive and successful, customers are more satisfied and loyal, and the organization gains efficiencies and fast ROI.

Download the complimentary white paper (PDF).