Becoming "customer-obsessed" is one of the top trends that will impact the contact centre industry this year.
This is according to Marta Peman, Africa sales manager at call centre solutions provider, Presence Technology, who notes contact centres are experiencing what is being referred to as "the age of the customer" - the shifting of power and information to the customer.
Market research firm Forrester says today's technology-empowered customers know more than businesses about their products, services, pricing and reputation. The only way for companies to win, serve, and retain customers is to become customer-obsessed.
According to Forrester, customer obsession is easy to talk about but hard to do. It requires remaking a company, systematically, to re-orient each element toward improved customer experience. It also requires embracing the technologies that make customer obsession real and actionable.
Peman notes customer experience has become a competitive differentiator among companies. "Contact centres with a good customer experience strategy and implemented programmes will have a competitive advantage."
A customer-obsessed contact centre focuses its strategy, energy as well as budget on processes that enhance knowledge of and engagement with customers, and prioritises these over maintaining traditional competitive barriers, says Peman.
"Contact centres need to adapt to this reality and guarantee positive experiences to their customers by providing value to customers each time they interact with them," she says. This means proper agent training, good customer-centric strategies, and a technology capable of delivering the same experience regardless of the channel used to communicate, adds Peman.
Empowered customers are disrupting every industry - changing the nature of competitive strategy, says Tim Passios, VP of solutions marketing for Interactive Intelligence. Contact centres need to understand how this trend is disrupting their industry and how technology management must adapt in this rapidly evolving world, adds Passios.
He points out in a contact centre, customers' data has to be gathered at every touch-point, pooled and put to use.
The data can be used to reduce the number of questions that must be asked and give the agent important information about the customer. It must also be used for new customer experience-focused routing to match the customer with the best possible agent to deal with that particular client, based on historical and demographic data, says Passios.
To have a successful customer experience strategy, contact centres need to develop an internal audit to detect possible problems or gaps in their client-centric strategies and technology to adapt their processes and IT to the new needs, says Peman.
Companies should communicate through chat messages, e-mail, self-service or social media as customers are making use of the platforms in communicating, adds Peman.
She believes a multi-channel strategy and a technology that supports it, is crucial in a customer-centric company.
"As the customer becomes more empowered, South African companies are becoming more aware of the customer obsession trend and those implementing customer-centric strategies are gaining a substantial competitive advantage."
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