Omnichannel contact center demystified – how to improve customer experience?

A Microsoft study found that a whopping 66% of consumers contact customer service using at least three different communication channels. Similarly, 75% of respondents stated that they expect customer service agents to recognise them and their purchase history in all channels.

That’s the kind of service we all crave: efficient, personal, and delivered on our own terms.

This is where omnichannel comes in. Omnichannel is a strategy for improving customer experience by integrating customer touch points together and aiming to offer the same high-quality service in all channels.

Omnichannel from a customer perspective

Great customer experience is often the result of several small pieces coming together.

For example, no one enjoys being bounced around from one channel to the next when you are trying to get your order in or your issue fixed. We’d rather take care of business right then and there, whether it’s via phone, chat, email, SMS, or any other inbound or outbound communications channel we choose.

Of course, sometimes changing channels is a positive. For example, sometimes we’d rather switch from a call to email to give us more time to make informed decisions and study the paperwork for example.

Should there be a need to change channels, the agent we’re in touch with should either remain the same or at least have the same information that we just passed along to the other agent.

Omnichannel enables:

• better customer experience
• channel-independent service
• continuing a conversation from one channel to the next.

From a customer perspective, these are obvious. However, to meet these needs, you need to make sure your contact center is able to offer omnichannel service.

What does an omnichannel contact center look like? 

It’s really no mystery. Pick the right omnichannel solution, and running your contact center actually becomes easier, not harder. You’ll have less software to worry about as all channels can be handled from a single application.

Agents should get all customer information and communications in one view, so that there’s no need to jump from one system to another to view contact history for example. Armed with this view, they can then respond swiftly in whatever channel the customers use.

For managers, omnichannel software makes it easier to automatically distribute work between agents based on their skills and other criteria. Keywords in emails, for example, can direct the customer to the right agent with the expertise to solve the issue at hand over the phone.

In this way, you can offer your customers the same great experience in every channel.