Omni-Channel Customer Engagement Article

In the customer relationship management industry, we have a few phrases to describe how and when customers interact with businesses. Companies are always perfecting the customer experience, or customer interaction. Nowadays, it’s often referred to as the “customer journey,” which encompasses the first point of contact and each step to a resolution. What’s more, there’s now the omni-channel experience, which means businesses are using technology to better obtain data and help customers in need.

Consumers are now experiencing the power and the promise of converged and rich communication such as instant messaging, video sharing and buddy lists, which have introduced a new user practices. With all of these pathways along the journey, even managers and reps can get a little lost. Navigation, strategy, and insight will help you go above and beyond providing basic service.

Aspect (News - Alert) discusses how the journey is more than just ensuring “first call resolution,” which simply refers to resolving a query on the first point of contact. Of course representatives will want to go above and beyond resolution. If companies simply stop at problem solving, there will be a compromise in customer loyalty. As Aspect notes in its blog, “In most instances, the customer journey began long before the phone call and shouldn’t end when the customer hangs up the phone.”

As anyone who’s called into a contact center or interacted with a business via social media, the outlets by which to give feedback are important and necessary. These interactions, both positive and negative, are saved on record and provide beneficial information to the businesses serving their customer base.

By having this information recorded and stored, managers can analyze the data for future products, services and overall performance analytics, not to mention where there is room for improvement. This sort of information is crucial in improving customer service, but it also lends to enhanced business success. It also helps define the pathways that come with the omni-channel experience, thus eliminating confusion.

Customers today demand higher quality, competitively priced products and improved service while businesses are continually tasked with striking the balance between service quality, efficiency and effectiveness, and revenue generation, cost cutting and profitability.

Research have proven that companies who employ the omni-channel approach do better, and so it behooves businesses to start thinking about ditching the single channel solution and move toward a model that incorporates the modern methods of communication that customers use today.