Phone calls are still a great way to handle your customer service. Voice calls even ranked at the top of preferred communication channels in a DMG study.
However, the study also found that you exclude a sizable portion of your customer base if you don’t allow people to reach you in additional ways. An omnichannel contact center makes all types of communications with your clientele easier and more efficient than ever.
Learn how to build an omnichannel contact center that delivers a high return on investment.
Key Takeaways:
- Omnichannel contact centers integrate all channels and are superior to multichannel contact centers.
- An omnichannel contact center improves the customer experience and employee productivity.
- Apply best practices when building your contact center, such as continually collecting data, automating what you can, and personalizing customer interactions.
- Look for a provider with a cloud-based contact center that has the latest technology.
What Is the Difference Between a Multichannel and Omnichannel Contact Center?
The term “contact center” refers to the technology that allows your company to communicate with outside parties, in particular, your customers. It can also mean the department of people who use that technology for inbound and outbound communications.
The expression “contact center” is gaining wider acceptance over “call center” because these sales and customer support operations occur through more channels than phone calls. Customers want to connect with businesses through text messages, emails, video calls, and social media.
How your distinct channels connect determines whether you have a multichannel or omnichannel contact center.
Multichannel
Multichannel means that all the separate channels are there but do not connect or directly relate to each other. In other words, what happens on phone calls stays with the phone call software. Likewise, chat conversations stay with chat, and email discussions remain with email.
The advantage is that agents can become extremely capable of servicing customers on a particular channel. The disadvantage is that if a customer needs to switch to a different channel, their information is difficult to share across teams. Customers will have to constantly repeat themselves, and the interaction is not seamless.
Omnichannel
An omnichannel contact center integrates all of your communications in convenient cloud-based software. No matter how a customer is interacting with your team, they have one fluid interaction.
For example, a customer may first reach you through text or email and then need further assistance on a phone call. However, the customer won’t have to repeat so many details and start fresh with the new agent because everyone has access to the same necessary information.
As a result, agents have the entire customer history in a single interface and can pick up where the previous conversation left off. As customers receive assistance from different team members, the process moves smoothly between them.
Why Should You Use an Omnichannel Contact Center?
An omnichannel contact center offers numerous benefits to organizations that handle a high volume of inbound and outbound communications.
- The customer experience is much better because agents can answer questions more quickly when they have the entire caller history readily available.
- Agents are more productive because they have the necessary tools more readily available in a unified interface.
- Employee engagement increases because agents stick to queries that match their skill sets and do not deal with irate customers as often.
- Your system is more secure and reliable when you work with a provider that follows industry-leading security practices.
Omnichannel contact centers boost your profitability and customer satisfaction as a result.
What Are the Best Practices for Building an Omnichannel Contact Center?
An omnichannel contact center gives you the best tools for connecting with customers, but like any other tools, you have to know how to use them to get the most out of them.
Careful Data Collection
The only way to get the full benefits out of your omnichannel contact center is to make sure you’re continually collecting information about customer interactions and critical metrics. Deploy powerful features for analytics and reporting to see how you’re doing and how you can improve.
Customer Data Organization
Once you have the data, make sure you assemble it in a system that makes it easy for you to see and understand customer journeys. Fortunately, Intermedia’s omnichannel contact center has an appealing interface that makes this easy to do.
Automation To Improve Efficiency
Automated features will save you tons of time. For example, enable chatbots and autoresponders to handle basic queries. You can also program those features to funnel customers to a human agent when customer issues become too complex.
Personalized Experiences
Just because you have the helping hand of automation doesn’t mean customer interactions should be robotic. Use their information to create friendlier and more personal experiences for a customer-centric omnichannel contact center.
What Should You Look For in an Omnichannel Contact Center?
The following features are essential for you to implement the best practices in your omnichannel contact center.
Cloud-Based Connectivity
Your team members should be able to securely access your contact center whether in the office, on the road, or remotely. Cloud-based systems allow your agents and supervisors to work from wherever, whenever.
Skill-Based Case Routing
Automatic call distribution and interactive voice response software work together to get callers to the right agent more quickly. Faster responses and increased efficiency please customers and employees alike.
Real-Time Reporting and Analytics
See what your team is doing at the moment with omnichannel contact center reporting software. Interpret that data more quickly and accurately with AI-assisted analytics that show you what’s most effective and how customers are responding to your efforts.
Seamless Integrations
Get more out of the business apps you use by integrating them into your omnichannel contact center. Collect client info more quickly into your CRM and maximize the capabilities of your sales and marketing software.
Voice Service
Service every type of customer worldwide with numbers that fit each situation. Get toll-free numbers to be more inviting for landline users and use vanity or local numbers for effective marketing that provides a memorable or personal touch.
Are You Ready To Set Up Your Omnichannel Contact Center?
You can build your omnichannel contact center in no time with Intermedia. Contact us to determine which plan and features fit your team.
Rob Oscanyan
Rob is Director for Product Marketing for Contact Center as a Service here at Intermedia.
November 8, 2023
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