Just a few years ago, a contact center awards program ran a PCI compliance category.
Sean Taylor, CEO of Content Guru, was a judge and, as part of the evaluation, sat down with one of the finalists’ agents to watch how they worked.
“They were taking a customer’s payment and had a stack of yellow Post-it notes on their desk,” said Taylor during a recent CX Today interview. “They typed the credit card details into one system, then quickly wrote them on a note.
“When I asked why, they explained that the information also needed to go into another system, but they couldn’t do both at once.”
Yet, imagine leaving the building with a pocket full of Post-it notes containing names, credit card numbers, expiry dates, and CVV codes…
Needless to say, they didn’t win the competition. Nevertheless, the story illustrates just how difficult it is for many agents to switch between systems.
For all the talk of a “single pane of glass,” a Deloitte study in the UK found that the average contact center agent still works with around 14 separate systems of record.
Ultimately, that illustrates that there is no silver bullet. A closely considered omni-data strategy is instead the best path forward.
What Is Omni-Data?
Just as omnichannel communication brings together voice, email, RCS, WhatsApp, and video into one platform, omni-data brings all an organization’s data systems together.
Whether it’s Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, or proprietary systems like Guidewire in insurance or Epic in healthcare, an omni-data strategy surfaces them in one place.
Agents can push and pull information without resorting to Post-it notes or duplicate entries.
Content Guru is leading the omni-data charge by converging its CCaaS solution with a first-party customer data platform (CDP), enabling that single data thread.
“To me, that’s a no-brainer,” added Taylor. “Yet when we deliver it, customers often say, “Wow, that’s unique.”
“Other vendors may have strong connectors into Salesforce or Dynamics, but they don’t address the full challenge of integrating data across systems.”
Omni-Data and the Future of Customer Service
Omni-data provides a single source of data for agents to push and pull from. Yet, that’s not only human agents; AI agents can also do so.
Indeed, contact centers may orchestrate experiences where AI agents interact with customers while leveraging data from one a single layer, instead of pulling from a myriad of integrations, which require continuous, rigorous security checks.
Yet, they won’t just drink from the hosepipe; they feed back into it.
As such, contact centers can advance their conversation automation strategies, thinking not only about inbound but also outbound.