5 Ways to Personalise Customer Engagement with Contact Center Technology
Why Personalise Customer Engagement?
For the contact center, every conversation with a customer is an opportunity to generate loyalty and a positive outcome. And for customers, conversations with a contact center are most satisfying when the agent knows about the customer and their previous contact, which gives the opportunity for a more personal connection.
Below are five ways contact center technology can facilitate powerful customer engagement for every agent with a little help from technology:
1. Aligning agent skills with customer needs
For customers, it is important to get through to an agent with either the right knowledge to answer a specific question or the authorisation to set a process in motion. By asking a few targeted questions via IVR, the tech can then use the answers to automatically route the customer to an agent with the right knowledge in a specific product, or the relevant skill.
For more info, see skills-based routing.
2. Using business intelligence to provide familiarity
As a customer interacts with an organisation, they generate valuable information that can be used to enhance each subsequent interaction. An agent who has previously got on well with the customer will find it much easier to build on that relationship. Using business data to route the call to such an agent maximises the opportunity to personalise the conversation.
For more info, see preferred agent routing.
3. Presenting agents with an icebreaker
To provide a good customer experience (CX), the agent should be confident and well prepared for each session. The ‘screen-pop’ of customer information that appears to an agent when a customer is connected to them should provide an instant snapshot of the customer and their reason for contacting. Data may come from various sources and the agent must be able to familiarise themselves in a few seconds. This allows them to start a conversation with the customer straightaway that is both meaningful and useful.
For more info, see agent desktop.
4. Equipping agents with customer-specific intelligence
Once the customer has been paired with an agent, that agent can view any previous contact sessions to provide context and build rapport. Tech can use the customer’s session identifier (CLI) to retrieve prior sessions on any channel (email, chat, voice, social etc.) and this can be displayed on the agent desktop.
For more info, see customer journey tracking.
5. Pairing agents and customers (with a little help from AI)
AI techniques for routing calls go beyond the history of an individual customer. They can use historical information about all customers and all agents to identify patterns of behaviour in both and to intelligently identify the ‘right agent’ for each call. Even if an agent from a previous session isn’t available, the customer is in good hands communicating with the best possible second choice.
For more info, see inbound routing.
Customer engagement and the customer journey
The relationship between agent and customer is the human-to-human aspect of the overall customer journey and a vital part of a successful customer experience. A personalised interaction can help the customer feel valued, instilling trust and loyalty in the brand. Providing the agent with the right tools to personalise the engagement, and connecting the customer with the perfect agent for their needs puts organisations into the driving seat of CX.
Get in touch for a free demo of our software, or if you have any questions about how Sytel’s tech can enhance customer engagement…
