Skyrocketing Mobile Usage: Impact on the Contact Center

Is your contact center ready for the ongoing mobile onslaught predicted for 2017? E-commerce will never be the same as consumers continue to make more and more purchases from their mobile devices. What’s the impact on the contact center? It will be an extension of the impact being felt by retailers, which includes challenges in mobile payments and checkout systems that may turn off customers completely—or have them reaching out to contact centers for help.

Smartphones edged out computers, 45.1 percent to 45 percent, as the most popular way to shop online during the first quarter of 2016, according to a study by Demandware. By the end of next year, Demandware forecasts that the percentage of mobile e-commerce visits will rise to 60 percent.

With this wealth of mobile traffic, retailers have gained an incredible opportunity: to reach customers any time and any place. Yet, unless they have optimized their mobile site or applications, they risk antagonizing consumers—some of whom may have been loyal patrons through other venues, like stores and computer websites. In fact, Demandware found that mobile checkout completion is 11 percent lower than the rate from all other devices combined.

The sheer number of smartphones (more than the world’s population) alone means that consumers can connect with contact centers through multiple channels (e.g., online chat, social, email) at will. This has dramatically increased the volume of customer service interactions. It has also increased the expectation of immediacy in customer service.

For example, companies are already integrating their mobile apps with a customer service connection, e.g., “Just click the button to talk to a customer service representative.”

The contact center must now respond to these trends, as well as a strong preference among mobile users for self-service. This means that contact centers will be called upon to seamlessly integrate self-service and live service. The ones that do so will positively differentiate their services from those of their competitors.

Another strong brand differentiator will be the technology deployed to enable processes and infrastructure that can support omnichannel customer service. When it’s easy and enjoyable for customers to do business with your contact center, you’ll reap rewards in customer loyalty and retention.

Fortunately, mobile apps will help you improve that likelihood as they become part of the customer journey. That is, because customers have signed in through an app, contact centers can collect data on their activities and preferences, enabling these centers to be more personal and responsive. This can reduce call times and call volume, leading to greater customer satisfaction.

Look at mobile as part of the continuum of modern customer service advances that are blowing through contact centers. Keep up; keep customers happy, and keeping growing your business.