Omni-Channel Customer Engagement Article

What is your typical customer service experience when you’re sitting in the role of the customer? Is it you’re spending time on the phone with a company, waiting on hold and moving through phone trees until you get to the right person? Are you instead one of those individuals who reports on an issue via social media and waits for a near instant response? Or do you prefer Web chat where you can get a little help while also using self-service?

The arrival of omni-channel customer engagement has changed the ways in which we interact with companies. While it’s true that there is still the segment of the population that prefers to make phone calls or always go into the bank, there is a growing majority that prefer fast, easy and often self-service methods to complete business. The challenge for companies has always been to recognize the preference of their target audience and adjust their offerings accordingly.

Frost and Sullivan published an Executive Think Tank document covering omni-channel customer engagement and how mobile and social are changing the rules now and into the future. The document is a result of bringing together customer engagement industry professionals and talking about these rules and what they mean to the overall landscape. One clear consensus among the group is that the customer experience is critical to the financial success of their businesses.

One area that the group seemed somewhat divided was in the ownership of the customer experience. It’s easy to assume that this falls solely to the contact center, especially when omni-channel customer engagement is present. In 60 percent of companies represented, the contact center was considered the owner, with only 30 percent assuming it landed in the C-suite. None of the participants believed it belonged to marketing. Who’s right? The answer may be in none of these as a failure to see ownership across all customer touchpoints and decision processes could cause a degradation in the overall experience for the customer, which directly impacts the bottom line.

If it’s difficult to ascertain ownership, then it’s also difficult to determine the best way to move into the future, with mobile and social playing a bigger role. Not all interactions are originating in the contact center, which leaves the customer experience to chance if they own sole responsibility. The contact center agent isn’t developing the mobile app, yet he or she is closest to the customer. This disconnect could quickly lead to problems and the customer experience won’t reach expected levels.

The best method for ensuring the customer experience is meeting standards set by the customer and the company is to make it part of the culture for all employees. After all, without the creation of that experience, everyone’s job could be in jeopardy.