Richard McCrossan, Strategic Business Director at Genesys looks at how the cloud is enabling companies to quickly and easily offer customers a truly mobile service.
It used to be the case that the contact centre used more advanced technology than the consumer. Now contact centres are in danger of being left holding the landline phone while the customer tries to contact them on any number of channels and increasingly, through their mobiles.
According to research, 7 in 10 people in the UK now own a smartphone and this isn’t the preserve of younger generations – as more than half of 54-65 year olds also own a smartphone. Despite these figures, recent Genesys research found that only 20% of companies currently have a mobile customer service app.
Here comes the cloud
Customer service has to bridge the gap between the smart consumer with the smartphone and the contact centre. Even though mobile applications are becoming increasingly powerful customer touch points, many companies are failing to leverage them in order to engage with consumers. The cloud provides a quick and simple solution to integrate mobile with customer service, providing the customer with a seamless link to the contact centre agent, as well as allowing the contact centre agent to view previous exchanges and contacts with the company.
Genesys is in the vanguard of unifying the cloud, mobile and customer service in order to provide a seamless customer experience. The cloud provides the bond between the app and the contact centre, thus simplifying the process for the customer of obtaining service and for the enterprise of supplying the service. The app itself is not hosted in the cloud – the customer just downloads the app from the device-dependent app store as usual – but there is a Genesys widget within the app.
When a customer using the app needs to contact customer service, they simply tap on the Genesys-powered contact icon, while remaining in the app. They then simply choose the preferred method of contacting the agent and the app will open up the selected communication channel. All relevant information is stored and can be used to route the call to the most appropriate agent to resolve the issue. The agent will thus have a full overview of who the customer is and what the customer has been trying to achieve prior to the contact. This process ensures that the customer communicates with the best agent available to resolve her concern, while the agent will have the necessary information to resolve that concern, and to resolve it quickly.
Raising the bar on personalisation
Ultimately, integrating the smartphone into customer service has to provide a seamless experience for the customer. It enables companies to raise the bar on personalisation, delivering a customer experience that is increasingly dictated by the customer – when they want service, where, and over what channel. Cloud can help in this process, by providing the vital link between a mobile app and the ability for companies to offer a truly personalised, customer experience.
Richard McCrossan, Strategic Business Director, Digital Channels, EMEA, Genesys
Richard McCrossan joined Genesys in 2007 as a voice self-service specialist and formed part of the team that created the Intelligent Customer Front Door (iCFD) solution, which ushered in a new way of delivering customer-centric, cross channel customer service.
Now, as Strategic Business Director for Digital Channels in EMEA, Richard is responsible for supporting Genesys’ drive into digital channels with new and innovative products and solutions, such as Genesys Social Engagement and Mobile Engagement. Richard is a passionate evangelist for simple, fast and great customer service, a subject on which he regularly blogs, speaks and tweets.
Richard holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Queens University, Belfast.
Reach him on Twitter: @dossan