The Covid-19 pandemic condensed a decade of digital progress into just over a year, dramatically changing customer expectations and making digital-first the only way for organisations to remain competitive.
This is according to Ankur Yadav, sales leader for South Africa at Freshworks, who was speaking ahead of a Freshworks webinar on digital-first and omnichannel CX.
Yadav notes that because of the pandemic and restrictions on movement, even older consumers who previously did not use digital channels have embraced online and digital-first shopping and communications.
“Importantly, while consumers have embraced the convenience of engaging online, they still want the connection and empathy of personal connections, so personalised service has become even more important in the digital-first environment,” he says.
Freshworks research finds that customers increasingly expect agents to know who they are and the context of their query, as well as wanting faster service and responses and seamless omnichannel experiences. Relatively new to the omnichannel environment is WhatsApp and other direct messaging services, which growing numbers of consumers find to be the most convenient way to engage with a brand.
Many organisations attempting to address demand for more engagement channels make the mistake of adding channels without fully integrating them, he says. “Without proper integration and the context carrying across channels, this amounts to a multi-channel approach instead of a true omnichannel approach,” he says. What this means for customers is frustration as they have to repeat their queries multiple times across channels, to agents who do not know their history of engagements with the organisation.
For agents, not knowing the customer history and context of their engagements across channels can be equally frustrating, says Yadav. “Empowering agents with all the information they need, when they need it, helps drive customer delight.”
He notes that automation, bots, and helpdesk integrations with communications tools and even third-party systems, dramatically improve customer experience while also slashing agent workloads and curbing costs. “AI is becoming increasingly important in customer service, not only to automate responses and address queries, but also as a tool to predict customer needs and so further enhance the customer experience,” he says.
Webinar
Digital-first and omnichannel CX: The next generation agents of customer delight
Date: Thursday 25 November 2021
Time: 11:00 (GMT+2)
Duration: 60 minutes
Freshworks, in partnership with ITWeb, will host a webinar entitled Digital-first and omnichannel CX: The next generation agents of customer delight on 25 November, outlining changing customer experience trends and how businesses can adapt to ensure customer delight.
Freshworks experts will outline how organisations can easily empower their agents and deliver enhanced omnichannel customer service.
For more information and to register for this event, go to https://www.itweb.co.za/webinar/freshworks-digital-first-and-omnichannel-cx/
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