Cross-Channel Solutions Address Our Instincts

We’re all adults here. But let’s face it, when it comes to dealing with customer service, we often act like children.

We want everybody to express how truly special we are. We tend to lack patience. Some are prone to temper tantrums. And if we don’t get the answer we want the first time we ask the same thing of someone else.

Providing customers with a range of reliable and efficient options through which to get the help they need, and outfitting customer service personnel with the information and tools they require to supply that help, can make for much more professional, efficient, and profitable interactions between the two sides. Integrating the data and management of those channels allows for better agent and customer experiences as well.

Yet today many businesses offer customers only a few channels with which to interact with them. And often those different channels are on entirely separate tracks. That means that the people and systems used to handle chat-based inquiries are separate from those that address customer calls. Email- and social media-based are typically in separate organizational silos as well.

That’s a problem, because it means that customers have to reiterate their details and requests every time they leverage a different channel with which to interact with a business. And, as Accenture (News - Alert) research suggests, 58 percent of consumers are frustrated with inconsistent experiences between channels.

For businesses the siloed situation translates into a very limited view of its customers. So instead of a full customer lifecycle view that would allow businesses to deliver more consistent and beneficial services and solutions, they see only individual transaction piece parts of the customer experience as it relates to their business.

Max Ball (News - Alert), director of product marketing at RingCentral, says all of the above calls for what he terms an omni-digital platform. “What you really need,” he continues, “is a single platform that can manage all the interactions you have across all the different channels.” That platform, he adds, should allow businesses to control and manage those interactions, present all of a given customer’s interactions with the company via a single view, and enable the organization to add support for new channels as they arise.

Meanwhile Monet Software (News - Alert) is using the term opti-channel in explaining the kind of platform contact centers need to address today’s requirements.

“Where omnichannel presents customers with an array of communication options, opti-channel goes one step further, by attempting to anticipate which channel a customer prefers for specific activities, and then expediting their interactions once they arrive,” Monet Software explains.

Marketing teams are first to the opti-channel approach, Monet Software suggests. It allows them to identify what channel is most likely to produce the most desirable marketing outcomes. “But that same strategy can make a contact center more efficient,” the company adds. “Instead of offering more channels and integrating them, opti-channel delivers clear guidance to preferred channels.”

Edited by Maurice Nagle