How many channels do you offer clients for interaction? If your environment is like most small- to medium-sized businesses, you take phone calls from clients, manage a website with a “Contact Us” page and maybe even interact via social media. It sounds small, but these three channels make yours a multichannel environment—and that takes a special kind of attention.
Call center solutions built around the multichannel environment are growing in demand simply because consumers are relying on additional channels to make the desired connections. The proliferation of the smartphone and the growth in mobility has made self-service and social media interactions critical to the consumer experience.
At the same time, consumers want multiple options when it comes to interacting with companies—and they want the experience to be seamless across all channels. It can seem like a tall order to fill, but the reality is multiple channels means less cost when it comes to customer care. Research from ContactBabel (News - Alert) shows that the estimated cost of an inbound interact with a live agent cost the organization $7.76.
When that same interaction is handled via IVR (Interactive Voice Response), it only cost $0.98. In the middle of these figures are email at $3.37 and Web chat at $3.52. These channels represent significant cost savings over the live agent and provide for that self-service option consumers want. The key, as stated earlier, is to ensure the experience is consistent across these channels.
This is one area where a number of companies are lacking, however. Call center solutions are available to help integrate all channels and ensure the view of the customer is consistent, yet only one in six contact centers have this tightly integrated view. Of the professionals interviewed by ContactBabel, only 25 percent have access to a knowledgebase application. Another 15 percent are using cloud-based IVR functionality and only 12 percent keep it simple when it comes to menu options.
Another key finding points to why contact centers need to incorporate self-service and multiple channels in the first place – consumers are using their mobile devices to stay connected to the brands with which they do business. According to ContactBabel, roughly 40 percent of calls made to the contact center come from mobile phones. Roughly half of this number comes from smartphones.
Consumers are doing things on the go, which means they want options when it comes to making connections. If their satisfaction is a top priority, it’s time to investigate the call center solutions available so you can expand into the multichannel contact center world. It not only meets their needs, it will also lower your cost of operation.
Edited by Alisen Downey