Build a World-Class Omni-Channel Contact Center Workforce

Learning Objectives

After completing this module, you’ll be able to:

• Explain the consumer’s expectations of service.
  
• Describe how emerging technologies can impact your contact center design.
  
• Describe the Salesforce Service Cloud Advantage.
  
• Discover how to use customer past experiences and feedback to transform your organization.
  

Welcome to the Age of the Customer

Customer service has evolved, and it has shattered the idea of call center business as usual.

Today’s customers are digital and on the move. They connect to each other instantly through multiple channels, and they expect the same from the companies they deal with. Let’s look at how Service Cloud can help your call center team exceed your customers’ ever-demanding expectations.

According to top researcher Forrester, “The ability to align products, operations, and business models to what we call a ‘customer-obsessed operating model’ will determine a company's ultimate success.” In other words, for businesses to keep customers happy and to stay competitive, you must invest in sophisticated technology that lets your contact center deliver top-notch service on every channel.

Change Channels—and Customer Interactions

The way in which customers contact you is always shifting: calling, emailing, texting, and so on. The shift will continue as artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more commonplace. Brace yourself for AI to disrupt customer support jobs, as nonhuman interactions are on the rise. For example, with the Internet of Things (IOT), a washing machine can predict the need to purchase more detergent and instantly connect with a retailer’s app (such as Amazon Alexa) to place and confirm the order. This is not to say we don’t need service agents, but the way they interact with customers is changing fast. Human interaction will still be required on many of the customer service cases coming through your organization. But as new technology makes contacting service easier, more accessible, and instant, the overall volume of customer service interactions through multiple channels will continue to climb.

So What’s Next?

Agents must become experts in all customer engagement channels to make their customer interactions more personalized and, well, human. But what happens if your agents don’t have the right tools to meet the shifting demands of customers? Customer frustration can increase as brand loyalty decreases, ultimately leading to lower CSAT and NPS scores...and greater attrition.

That’s why leading organizations understand the need for an intelligent, flexible customer service platform that can give their agents the tools to make their jobs easier, and meet the higher demands of today’s customers. And it’s why organizations are digitally transforming their customer contact centers with the Service Cloud platform.

The Service Cloud Advantage: Connect with Connected Customers

It’s not necessary to make things overcomplicated to offer an omnichannel experience. You can make it happen in a single platform.

Here’s how: Service Cloud gives your agents the power to deliver service that bridges the gap from a transaction to an interaction. It’s as instant and easy as a conversation, on whatever channel your customers are using—from a single platform. Now your agents can respond in real-time to any customer, anywhere.

Give Agents a Single, 360-Degree Customer View

Imagine this: Every single service agent can turn to their desktop and have a real-time view of a customer's entire journey with your company. And they can then use that information to offer personalized service—fast.

The Lightning Service Console is designed with agents in mind. And since the console is built on the Salesforce platform, your agents can access information from different systems across the company. This enables agents to access everything they need to provide quality customer service from one screen.

Boost Agent Productivity—and Customer Happiness

It’s not unusual for companies to have 10 or 20 systems that agents use to find all a customer’s information. If agents have all of that information on one screen, they can solve customers’ issues much faster, and work more efficiently. And you can boost customer satisfaction and your ROI. With the Lightning Service Console, everything an agent needs is right at their fingertips so that they can deliver:

• Faster service: Rapidly work through any backlog of cases with tools that eliminate clicks and let agents take care of customers quickly, increase customer satisfaction levels, and stay motivated by feeling agile and productive.
  
• Smarter service : Agents can be proactive service gurus, address inefficiencies before they happen, and feel empowered with the right information to make more informed decisions that help build lasting customer relationships.
  
• Personalized service : “ 68% of consumers say it’s very important for service agents to know their full history.” Regardless of channel, your agents can always know everything about your customer. Whether it’s past issues, purchase history, or data from a backend system, everything’s all in one place.
  

So get ready to leapfrog the competition as you deliver on the personalized experiences your customer cares about most.

Help Customers Help Themselves with Self-Service Sites

Did you know that most customers prefer not to talk to a live agent? In fact, “81% of them try self-service first.” So how can you offer personalized self-service on any channel a customer chooses?

With Service Cloud, you can create a single, branded Experience Cloud site that your customers can access to find what they need, on any device, anywhere they go. This frees agents to spend more time working on the toughest cases.

So what about those questions going unanswered in self-service sites?

Salesforce Experience Cloud sites integrate with Service Cloud. Customers can create cases manually, agents can escalate customer questions to cases, and managers can set workflows to escalate cases if a question hasn't been answered

Meet Rising Customer Expectations on Every Channel

Everyone appreciates a genuine conversation. That goes for customers, too. It’s time for service agents to ditch the call script and engage with customers with more personalized conversations.

Research shows that the “service customers experience from your center influences the level of service they expect to experience in their next contact.” It’s important to understand what customers expect from your organization, so you can reposition the contact center to meet shifting expectations quickly and efficiently. Let’s look at how to do that.

Best Practices for Omnichannel Call Center Success

1. Customer service is a team sport:

• Ensure that everyone in your service organization, from agents to your management team, thoroughly understands your top 10 basic customer expectations.
  
• Be sure to post them prominently.
  

2. Don’t guess what customers want. Go straight to the source: the customer.

• Create services based on what customers really expect.
  
• Then listen to customer interactions with agents and social channels. Take frequent and detailed surveys to get insight on how you’re meeting the team’s 10 expectations.
  

3. Exceed expectations.

• Steve Jobs said, “Customers don’t usually know what they want until you show it to them.” Go beyond the status quo and give customers more than what they ask for, and differentiate your brand through service.
  
• Transform your call center now to get a jump-start on the future.
  

4. Build cross-functional teams.

• Make customer service a team sport by serving customers across your organization.
  
• Use your company’s combined information, support, processes, products, and services to meet and exceed customer expectations.
  

5. Let your customers guide your strategy.

• Ensure that the evolving customer expectations are central to how you approach your customer relationships.
  
• Enable your customers to drive everything, including segmentation, the channels you make available, service-level objectives, your hours of operation, and more.
  

Now you have a few new service strategies to give your customers simplified, fast, convenient, and consistent services, that can build loyalty and turn them into your brand ambassador.

Resources

• Second Annual State of Service Report
• Connect to Your Customers in a Whole New Way