Calabrio: Expect the Unexpected: 3 ways to give customers what they want

June 2022

Despite a massive shift towards digital-first customer service the human element remains in demand.  Magnus Geverts reveals how to overcome this interesting contradiction in what customers expect with processes and technology that is easy, personalised and smart.

Over the last two years, digitalisation has grown exponentially. According to communications regulator Ofcom, with the UK in some form of lockdown for most of 2020, citizens were more dependent than ever on online services. They went online for entertainment, shopping, keeping in touch, getting information, home working and home schooling. Online retail spend in the UK indeed increased by 48% to an estimated £113 billion in 2020 (compared to an average annual increase of 13% in the previous four years). In Europe the south led the way when it came to e-shopping during the pandemic with the majority (52%) of consumers in Spain and 44% of consumers in Italy saying they shopped online more often compared to 44% and 37% respectively the year before.

Meanwhile, customer expectations have changed just as dramatically and there is no going back.  While craving the speed, convenience and seamlessness of the perfect Amazon Prime experience, customers also want empathy, deep knowledge and complex problem-solving when they interact with their favourite brands.  The latter appears to be particularly true in France where the majority of consumers say they would still prefer physical interactions compared with people in Germany and the UK where consumers show the greatest confidence in choosing digital over physical interactions. This interesting paradox is radically changing the way that contact centres approach customer service from the metrics they choose to measure success, to the technology they implement to better serve their customers. Companies need to consider the strategies they have in place to embrace double-edged customer expectations.

Time to press the reset button
Recent research suggests this trend is further reflected in the way contact centres are benchmarking their performance.  Taking the view that ‘good service means no service’, the goal is to make the customer experience totally effortless.  When the pandemic first hit in 2020, 48.2% of contact centres measured ‘customer effort’. This figure grew to a record high of 55.7% in 2021, up over 20% when compared to five years ago when just 35.8% of contact centres measured their success in this way.

Meanwhile, there is increased focus on collecting and analysing customer data and deploying AI-infused technologies as many more consumers enjoy self-service and the speedy benefits of chatbots and other automation tools. In the UK 64.1% of contact centres have now invested in Voice of the Customer (VOC) software to uncover hidden customer insights, a 32.4% increase since 2018.  At the same time, more than half (51.8%) of contact centres are implementing AI technologies such as process automation, Chatbots and interaction analytics.  In 2017, just 9.2 % of contact centres used speech analytics compared with 24% in 2021.  Meanwhile, recent research published by European CcaaS vendor Odigo reveals that 9 in 10 European executives are now looking to AI to improve CX, particularly to improve contact centres (78%), build better customer support (70%) or simply to reduce cost (81%).

3 ways to meet doubled-edged customer expectations
When faced with a period of significant change not least numerous new technologies, navigating the complexities of rising demands and digital-first customer experiences can be daunting for any contact centre.  The key to success lies in simplifying this complexity through processes and technology.  Therefore, aim for:

• Easy – why waste time on repetitive, unnecessary tasks or jump through hoops searching for actionable data on customer interactions when you can spend more time on customers?  Modern cloud-based contact centre technology is purpose-built to be easy to deploy, learn and simple to use.  Seek out solutions that are intuitive to use, with tools and functionalities that make it easy for all users - agents, managers and business leaders - to quickly see the customer and agent-centric information they need to take meaningful action.

• Personalised – means providing both agents and managers with experiences that make sense for their individual work styles so they are best placed to converse effectively with the overall business and their customers.  Look for technology with the customer’s needs and journey in mind.  Consider features like AI-enhanced, automated workflows and capabilities that are designed to drive operational efficiency while releasing a range of functionality to engage agents and give frontline staff all the information they need to deliver a highly personalised and predictive service experience.

• Smart – the goal is to understand what your customers need – before they even ask. Learn how to better predict customer interactions based on previous data and insights. Remember to train staff to align with those changing needs. The best contact centre technology comes with truly embedded analytics capabilities.  These blend customer-centric insights seamlessly within agent and manager workflows, enabling data-driven decision-making and allowing agents to add the all-important human element to digital interactions that today’s customers want.

For more ideas and inspiration on how to embrace today’s digital-first world of customer service while meeting double-edged customer expectations, download Calabrio’s latest report “Embracing double-edged customer expectations: Navigating the complexities of rising demands and digital-first customer experiences.”