The Contact Center: A Critical Piece of the Customer Experience

In recent years, there has been a widespread awakening in the business world about the importance of the overall “customer experience.”

A problem, however, has been steadily growing.

While many companies have been working hard to improve service for their customers, a large number have fallen behind in their efforts. As a result, a customer experience performance gap has been created where some companies are offering great service, and others are not.

For consumers, this is resulting in fragmented experiences across different organizations. Now, when customers pick up their phones and try to reach support, they have no idea whether they will receive great or abysmal treatment from service representatives. As such, many people still dial customer service looking for a fight.

The good news is that it’s possible to close this performance gap. More business leaders simply need to recognize that the customer experience really matters, and that offering great experiences can pay dividends over time.

The hope is that over the next few years, great service will cease to be seen as a competitive differentiator and will emerge as a necessity for business growth.

So, how do you ensure strong customer experiences? First, you need to create the right customer service environment. And this is where it helps to have the services of a third party contact center services provider.

Here are some ways that contact centers can help ensure positive customer experiences:

Rapid response troubleshooting: Few things anger customers these days more than having to wait to resolve issues when they arise. Speedy issue resolution is critical for keeping customers happy. Contact center providers today offer advanced technologies for receiving incoming communications, processing them in a timely manner and resolving them. Conversely, companies that opt to keep their contact centers in house are more liable to get overloaded. And this can lead to slow response times and unhappy customers.

Real-time Communication: Most of the time, customers just want to be heard. Sometimes, they want to vent. Other times, they want to share ideas about how to improve products or services. Contact centers give customers an opportunity to connect with live agents and share information. They can be used to humanize a brand.

Compromise: No company wants to lose customers, and contact centers can be one of the most effective tools for retaining them. For example, imagine a customer gets let down by not receiving a shipment on time. Contact centers can staff certain specialty agents to listen to customer complaints and work with them to find resolutions. So contact centers can provide a level of flexibility that can be instrumental in retaining customers.