Chicken or egg? People or technology?
In today’s most modern contact center space, it’s often hard to put your finger on what came first – and, more importantly, what should now be the priority.
Human agent-to-customer interaction is of course still a huge and vital part of the whole.
Bots, Interactive Voice Response, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning: none are capable of delivering the interpersonal feel that human support provides.
At the same time, contact centers devoid of any of the smart software or automation out there are also bound to fall way short of delivering high-grade, efficient customer service experiences.
A mix of the two, then, is of course the right way to go – and yet, for enterprises of all kinds and sizes, getting the blend just right can be a challenge.
Business-specific pain points must be understood; desired innovations identified; required investments calculated.
No surprises, then, that businesses and CX leaders need the close support of an expert provider partner as they seek to strike the balance between business goals and delivering on customer expectations.
“Customer expectations are changing every day, which means organizations of every kind must constantly evolve the contact center experience,” says Cory Glover, Amazon Connect Product Marketing Leader at global contact center solution provider AWS, which has recently hosted ‘AWS Contact Center Days’: a free, virtual two-day learning event showcasing perspectives and best practices from industry analysts, CX leaders, and innovation and technology evangelists tackling the people, operations, cultural, and technological challenges of today’s digital-first customer experience.
As is so often the case, it is technological innovation which appears to be dictating the overall customer service experience transformation. But technology itself is not enough to deliver on customer expectations at scale, it’s process and culture that also play a key role.
Kent Lemon, SVP Contact Center Customer Engagement at U.S. Bank, leads cloud and CX transformation. In his session with Chris Hennesey, Enterprise Strategist at AWS, Kent spoke about the importance of creating consistent customer journeys that ensure that, no matter where a customer comes in, their experience meets their personalized needs and that the bank is not dealing with things in silos.
From a cultural aspect, Alice Sesay-Pope, VP of Global Operations at Amazon, spoke of the criticality of Amazon’s leadership Customer Obsession and Strive to be the Earth’s Best Employer behind her team’s worldwide “Engage and Delight” North Star global mission for one of the largest customer service operations in the world