As customers diversify their channel footprint, brands must also keep up.
Indeed, as McKinsey & Company suggests: "Customers believe they can get whatever they want, whenever they want, within minutes."
Brands are eager to scale from pure-play call centers to omnichannel operations to appease modern customers, adding integrated channel capabilities.
A recent Cisco survey underlines this, revealing that 91 percent of contact center managers mentioned "integrated omnichannel" as a top-three priority, requiring strategic investments.
However, an omnichannel operation functions differently than a traditional call center. Here are the foundational steps to prepare for this change.
Connect Each Channel to a Central CRM and Agent Desktop
When each channel connects to a central CRM system, agents can view the customer's conversational history and offer personalized support.
By then plugging the CRM into other systems, including order management, document management, and VoC software, the agent can view the customer journey in a single thread.
Moreover, with an omnichannel desktop, agents can leverage multiple channels simultaneously to escalate the conversation and take advantage of various media. For instance, they could take a payment on chat and then send a confirmation SMS message within moments.
Develop an Intuitive Agent UI
Agents shouldn't have to switch between multiple systems and interfaces when handling interactions across channels.
Packing each channel into neat channel tabs is helpful, with personal statistics, work bins, and templates all accessible within the space.
Investing in a unified desktop will help to achieve this. But it's also good to set up custom automated triggers to quickly change the channel, access internal systems, send post-call follow-ups, and more.