Going digital is no longer a strategy planned for the future – it’s simply a requirement for doing business in today’s multi-channel world. But managing the ‘digital customer experience’ can be complicated. Richard McCrossan, Strategic Business Director at Genesys looks at how e-commerce managers, digital buyers and marketing managers can take 6 steps to truly understanding digital customers and ultimately drive clicks.
- The medium is the message – The smartphone may be the hub of today’s customers’ digital life, but the interactive customer experience involves multiple channels – whether it’s voice, web, SMS, chat or social. It’s not good enough to just provide these channels, the customer experience is unique to whichever channel the customer chooses – what works well on the telephone may not work so well on web chat. Make the response appropriate to the channel, even co-browse or chat to help customers on their journey to deliver the clicks you are looking for. Given that most of today’s digital channels are available on a smartphone make the most of this device. Mobile marketing can provide a great avenue to attract new customers and reward loyalty.
- The customer only has one voice, but uses many channels – Integrate channels so you have a single view of the customer. No customer wants to send an email about an issue and then have to call and explain again. Agent desktops are also fast becoming the technology of choice for contact centres – they store cross-channel customer information in one place so no customer has to repeat themselves as they change channel or agent. They are also completely customisable and much more flexible than traditional CRM systems – and can be integrated into existing legacy systems. A sophisticated agent desktop can be personalised for each individual agent with business rules, targets and blended work schedules. Adopting a holistic agent desktop ultimately improves the customer’s digital experience.
- Never miss a (relevant) tweet – So you’ve made the move to social media, now how do you keep on top of it? As a company, you will receive 100s of tweets a day, too many to sift through individually to make sure you provide good customer service to each person. Social analytics – often available as a cloud offering – will do it all for you, showing you tweets that don’t contain your twitter handle but contain your company name, only showing you tweets that are actionable and relevant, and listing tweets based on selected topics such as “good service” or “poor service”.
- Go self-service but don’t leave your customer high and dry – Companies that use proven self-service solutions tend to foster a higher rate of first-contact resolution, leading to positive experiences and loyal customers. It has even been shown that in some situations the majority of customers prefer self-service over calling an agent or sending an email. Here, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) provides one of the quickest, easiest and best self-service options available. Easy to install – IVR can be deployed through a cloud service – a self-service solution must be simple to navigate. But never abandon the customer – you want your customers not just to click through today, but tomorrow and next week – so make sure you offer an assisted service option.
- You’ve got mail – It has been suggested that email use is actually increasing, thanks to its instant accessibility on the smartphone. It’s convenient and while it isn’t necessarily instant, this works in its favour as a channel – a customer and can send and receive emails back at times convenient to them – and for a company, agents don’t have to tell a customer “I will find out and give you a call back” or “can you hold the line while I find out the information”, they can respond to the email as soon as they have the information, increasing first-contact resolution rate.
- Manage leads effectively – Through all of these channels, it’s essential that lead management is integrated across different departments in the company. Whether that’s the marketing department, sales team, website administrator or the customer service department. Using an intelligent workload management system, companies will make the most of digital interactions and maximise opportunities wherever possible, making each click count.
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