Andy Warhol is quoted as saying, “They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” Times are changing, but if companies don’t make a point of keeping up, then they choose to remain stagnant as the world progresses. Take, for instance, the modern call center – customers are more demanding than ever, especially with social media allowing for rapid-fire interactions. How can the call center make sure customers receive top-notch service in a transforming world?
The trick is managing data in an efficient and interactive manner. Easier said than done? Seems like it – large companies have staggering amounts of big data, the quantity of which is expected to increase by a factor of 300 through the year 2020. This incredible growth is driven by digital information, a lot of which is left unattended by companies. Feedback blogs, website activity and the like play tremendous roles in customers’ responses to businesses. If companies don’t fully access that information, they can’t really say they understand their customers. The job of the modern contact center, then, is to be more than just voice calls – it must reach across channels to access customer questions and responses. If businesses can employ sufficient intelligence systems to analyze that data, they will gain a better understanding of historical trends, current performance and forecasted expectations, creating a wider knowledge base for improved customer experience.
However, the means of synthesizing that data are not as out-of-reach as they may seem. Indeed, the resources available are geared towards both making the business side easier and the consumer side seamless. Tools like speech analytics and workforce optimization suites can improve agent performance, amp up internal processes, and help identify business trends. With these technologies, data can be used and analyzed to a company’s advantage.
Social media plays a dramatic role in boosting available company data; the modern age, in particular the younger generations, take to comments and statuses to express satisfaction (or lack thereof) with businesses. If a significant portion of your consumer base is active on social media, why leave that stone unturned? Artificial intelligence (AI) software can analyze social media mentions using large amounts of raw data, proving insight that would otherwise be unattainable (and safeguards are easy to incorporate to prevent long-time information storage).
Once a company sorts through its mentions on social media, it can move on to adjusting its own presence. A social-media component of a call center can prove hugely beneficial – in fact, one survey cited 75 percent of respondents as thinking social media outlets had better customer service than traditional call centers. What’s more, another survey found that companies with high social media activity increased their revenues by up to 18 percent.
Investing in an outbound voice program can supplement that social media presence, and effortlessly reach your whole consumer base. Outbound voice can send interactive and relevant messages to millions of customers, employees and partners at a time, even across platforms like voice calls, texting and email in addition to social media online. Having a system of such personal and relevant content at your fingertips can do wonders for upping the knowledge and satisfaction that customers experience with call centers.
As times change, businesses must capitalize upon the changes occurring around them, rather than giving into tradition. The call center is no longer just two voices on opposite sides of a telephone line – instead, business intelligence solutions are close at hand to help companies manage their data, understand their customers, and create truly personal experiences for everyone involved.
Edited by Blaise McNamee