Contact Center Wrap-Up—Where the Rubber Meets the Road

Dick Bucci | Monday, May 23rd 2022
customer support operators

Customer experience (CX) is the new marketing battleground. Customers who perceive their interactions with your company as highly positive purchase more of your products and/or services, purchase more frequently, are more loyal, and are more likely to share their positive views with personal contacts and online communities. 

So, if customer experience is the new battleground, then the contact center is out front leading the charge. While every business function that touches the customer influences the experience, the primary responsibility and accountability lands with the contact center. The quality of the interaction, either personal or automated, is the primary driver of customer satisfaction. These interactions have two components. One is the interaction itself, which typically consists of answering questions, solving problems, and executing transactions. The other slice of the pie is wrap-up. Wrap-up consists of the activities required to consummate the previous call and prepare for the next one. Typical examples include:

•    Documenting the reasons for the call in a data system
•    Updating the customer relationship management (CRM) software
•    Noting the outcome of the call and the next steps needed
•    Notifying other individuals within the organization that may have to take an action
•    Sending resources to the caller, such as instruction manuals and required disclosures

The time required to complete the wrap-up process varies greatly by industry and mission of the contact center, but a common industry estimate is six minutes. Wrap-up is the fulfillment phase of the interaction. That’s where the rubber meets the road. If the product is delivered after a critical date (such as a graduation or wedding gift), if the wrong product is sent, or if there are errors on the credit card application, then the customer will be very unhappy with your brand. It matters little that the agent was courteous, knowledgeable, and empathetic.

The mistakes that lead to these unhappy experiences can happen at the front-end, but are more likely to occur in the back office where required follow-ups are executed. These departments may have different databases, incompatible software, and may even lack efficient communications channels with each other.

Quadient is a global leader in the document management industry. The company has perfected technology that speeds and simplifies the internal processes that ensure essential information gets to the right people at the right time with intelligent integration. Recognizing the frequent and costly mistakes that occur at the fulfillment level at contact centers, the company has launched products that address the problems of communications management within the contact center environment. Quadient’s award-winning solution, Inspire, helps companies design, manage, and deliver personalized, compliant communications across all channels from one centralized platform.

Click here to learn more about customer communications software and how it can help improve call center efficiency and bring your communications into the CX era.