From improving productivity and customer experience to dramatically cutting your costs, the idea of an omnichannel contact centre comes with some big promises. However, not every solution really delivers everything that omnichannel makes visible.
By definition, an omnichannel contact centre solution must be all-encompassing. It’s not enough for a solution to support multiple channels - that is what the term multichannel is for. Maximising your return on investment and transforming how customer interact with your contact centre means getting a solution that is truly omnichannel, seamlessly connecting every way your customers could want to make contact.
Here are some of the things you should be checking for before you make a decision.
1. Support for every major channel
Some omnichannel solutions provide voice, email, ticketed web support, and possibly SMS. These are just a few of the channels that your customers may want to use and a true omnichannel contact centre can support a great deal more.
Beyond these basics, check your omnichannel contact centre solution is ready to handle newer ways of communicating like:
- Chatbots and AI agents
- Live chat through your website
- Video calls
- File sharing
Many of these newer innovations offer the biggest benefits. As just one example, a chatbot can handle the routine enquiries and transactional questions that make up around 85% of traffic in the average contact centre.
2. Give people choice at every stage
For your customers, the promise of an omnichannel contact centre is the promise of increased choice and control. Customers can contact you however they want to, whether they’re headed to social media late at night or asking a quick question on your live chat.
However, it’s essential that you consider your customer journeys and ask whether you are really giving people the freedom they might expect. A poor implementation could mean customers are limited to just one or two ways of initiating contact, with other channels only available when initiated by an agent. Similarly, it’s vital that customers can change their method of communication - for example, seamlessly switching from your chatbot to a phone call without having to repeat information or start afresh.
The right provider will help you integrate every possible channel into your environment, with routing that can transfer customers - and crucial details about every interaction - with platforms like your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.
3. Providing consistent quality of service
In an ineffective implementation, offering a multitude of different channels can actually become an obstacle for your customers. If some channels can only be used to answer certain types of questions, or if your agents are well-trained on the phone but less comfortable on live chat, your customers can’t feel confident about using new channels.
While agent training is always important, an easy-to-use agent interface that works across every channel can be a powerful way to increase confidence and performance. Meanwhile, skills-based routing from a unified queue can ensure that customers always reach the most capable agent for a given query or channel.
4. Achieving omnichannel visibility
Finally, a true omnichannel contact centre is managed as a single cohesive unit - not as multiple areas of the business, each siloed from the others. Your inbound contact centre solution needs to offer truly omnichannel visibility, bringing data together from every channel.
With robust reporting, you can get a comprehensive view of your customers and every interaction they have with your contact centre. As a result, you can make more informed decisions, see how different channels are working together and improve agent performance.
Find out how we can help you build a truly omnichannel contact centre.