Good customer service involves quick, first-time resolutions to inbound queries.
Great customer service anticipates customer needs and solves problems before the customer is even aware of the issue.
It’s more than just proactive; it’s pre-emptive.
Data centralization is crucial to lay the foundations for such a contact center.
It’s also essential for developing a 360-degree view of the customer, advancing routing and reporting strategies, and increasing personalization within service experiences.
Yet, contact centers have historically faced several challenges here.
For starters, data is typically siloed across apps, channels, and data stores.
Meanwhile, it’s often incomplete or includes conflicting information.
Then, there are the security-related risks of moving and copying data.
In short, managing contact center data has proven a minefield, stifling service innovation.
AWS confronted these challenges head-on by transforming Amazon Connect Customer Profiles into a complete data foundation.
Introducing the Next-Gen Amazon Connect Customer Profiles
AWS has built a data layer over Amazon Connect. That data layer takes information from various data sources, including Amazon Connect and 75+ systems of record through connectors.
In doing so, AWS leverages a generative AI-powered data mapping capability to create a 360-degree view of a customer. That includes what they purchased, looked at online before calling, their interaction history, and so on.
There are numerous benefits to this approach, perhaps most notably in enabling a simpler service experience for both agents and customers.
"Let’s say I call in for support about some horse-riding equipment," said Heidi Elmore, Senior Product Marketing Manager for Amazon Connect. "I’d want the agent to know when I purchased it, when I last called, and even that I’ve been browsing bridles online and have items sitting in my cart.
Without this unified view, both customers and agents have a disjointed, frustrating experience.
Amazon Q – AWS’s virtual assistant – could also surface relevant data from the customer profile in real time and recommend next best actions, streamlining issue resolution.
Yet, the Customer Profiles don’t only support live agents in resolving queries; they also assist AI agents. After all, if all relevant customer information lives in one place, they are better equipped to deliver accurate, personalized responses.