Cultivating Loyalty: Contact Center Software

How important is customer loyalty to your business? It’s likely a priority for your company, but it’s not always easy to gain. It can be hard to scale across an enterprise, and consistency in interacting with and supporting customers can be tricky. At the heart of customer loyalty is having contact center agents that have the tools they need to serve customers aptly. One of the essential ones is contact center software.

Why is it so valuable in reaching customer loyalty objectives? Let’s find out.

The Value of Customer Loyalty

In general terms, you can look at customer loyalty as repeat business. Additionally, a loyal customer may be more likely to recommend you to others or provide you with testimonials. But how can you quantify its value?

Here are some data points to consider:

• A 5 percent increase in customer retention can boost profitability by 25 percent.
• 90 percent of customers are likely to purchase more than once.
• 60 percent of loyal customers will make more choices from their preferred brands.

Loyalty pays dividends, so it’s critical to keep customers happy and meet their needs. So, how does your contact center play a role in either cultivating it or damaging it?

The Contact Center’s Role in Customer Loyalty

Once someone becomes your customer, they move to a new level in the relationship. They’ll likely engage less with sales or marketing and more with customer success groups. Their new connections often sit in your contact center, taking calls about a variety of things, from problems with products to new needs to general help.

This new relationship is essential to long-term loyalty. Customers are fickle and are becoming less likely to stick around if they feel mistreated, ignored, or had a negative experience. Your contact center agents are critical in making sure this doesn’t happen. Having a great disposition and positive demeanor is great for these employees. But they will need more to do their job well, and that’s where contact center software can streamline things.

How Contact Center Software Empowers Agents and Creates Positive Experiences

Contact center software is a set of tools that helps your agents provide optimal service effectively and efficiently. Time is of the essence in most of these transactions, and such a platform optimizes the process to reduce friction.

In looking at the features of a contact center solution, many directly contribute to customer loyalty.

Omni-Channel Routing

Customers want to interact with companies in multiple channels and get to the right person quickly. This flexibility is an expectation, but it’s often hard to scale and manage. Look for a system that offers omni-channel routing, which delivers this functionality.

First, it integrates all your channels — phone, voice, and email — so your customers have options. Second, it routes intelligently. This means based on why the customer is getting in touch, the system sends the customer to the correct type of agent. Third, it enables customers to speak to the same agent, if available, should they call back, so they don’t have to start over.

IVR (Interactive Voice Response)

IVR systems have been a hallmark of contact center software for some time. These automated interactions can gather data, provide information, and route calls. However, the challenge with IVRs for many has been that they are hard to deploy and change, making them not so helpful.

However, IVR can be easy with the right software. So be sure to ask about IVR when looking at options for one that’s simple to maintain and update.

CRM Integration

CRMs are full of useful data that can improve customer interactions. If your agents have immediate access to this, it provides them with context to resolve customer inquiries quickly. When an agent has this information, the conversation can be more personalized, and your customer will leave feeling important.

Outbound Messaging Opportunities

Your contact center isn’t just about receiving inbound communications. They often need to send outbound messages to customers as well. It’s ideal for this to be part of your contact center software so it’s streamlined from one central hub. These dynamic notifications can go a long way to building customer loyalty, too. You can send them in the channel the customer prefers — voice, SMS, and email. Some applications include appointment reminders, delivery notifications, reservation confirmations, payment received alerts, and promotional offers.

Call Monitoring for Quality

Contact center software allows your contact center managers to monitor and listen in on calls to check for quality and adherence to rules. Your supervisors can score the call and then make decisions on coaching for agents to improve their abilities. This process simplifies evaluations and provides insights on what issues keep arising so they can address them on a macro level. With these capabilities, you’ll be able to continue honing your agents to deliver great service.

With the Right Technology, Boosting Customer Loyalty Is Achievable

Offering great training and a positive work culture impacts customer loyalty. Beyond these, your contact center team needs technology to be the best at their jobs and delight customers. Contact center software is a powerful tool, but you need the right platform to achieve your objectives. Explore how our contact center software works and how it supports delivering amazing customer experiences.

The Intermedia Team

Intermedia helps businesses of all sizes connect better – through voice, video conferencing, chat, contact center, business email and productivity, file sharing and backup, security, archiving, and more – from wherever, whenever. And, as a partner-first company, Intermedia goes to work for our channel partners to help them grow their revenue and maximize their success.