Positive customer experiences (CX) have a resounding effect, turning happy customers into loyal ones. By putting the customer experience at the heart of your business, you create brand advocates through engagements with your team.
Outstanding customer experiences are born in the contact centre. For many organisations, contact centres are the first point of engagement and provide the initial impression customers get. Ensuring that CX is impeccable here is vital, as delivering a great CX brings benefits including:
- Improved customer satisfaction
- Increased customer loyalty
- Customers become brand advocates through word-of-mouth marketing and positivity
Introducing an omnichannel contact centre solution strategy is one surefire way to improve the customer experience, as it's aimed at satisfying the needs of the modern, digital customer.
The difference between customer experience and customer service
Though often confused, customer service and customer experience aren’t the same thing. Customer service is just one part of the bigger picture that is CX.
Customer service is the help and support a business provides in response to customer engagement. In comparison, customer experience refers to the entire customer journey and every single engagement within the business. The customer experience as a whole includes customer service, and doesn't just look at one-off interactions, but every touchpoint of a customer lifecycle journey.
Creating that great experience has never been more important, with three-quarters of consumers switching to a brand competitor after a single bad experience. Having a great CX doesn't just set you apart, it ensures the customers you do get stick around.
What makes an outstanding CX?
Customer experience is the resulting perception of, and feelings toward, a business after a customer has interacted with it. And this experience isn’t just a first impression – it encompasses a customer’s entire, lifetime relationship with a brand. From that initial point of contact to repeat purchasing and advocation, the CX defines that relationship.
Every brand with customers is providing an experience, but measuring and analysing the effectiveness of their CX strategy can appear challenging. By utilising the benefits of modern technology, your business can provide convenient and efficient customer interactions which measure both satisfaction and loyalty. Omnichannel contact centre solutions enable businesses to tap into a customer-centric environment that puts the CX at the forefront of what you do.
Ensuring your business’ CX is outstanding is crucial, as disappointing or frustrating interactions with your brand affect your overall bottom line, whereas an excellent customer experience can lead to a reduction in customer churn and an increase in referrals.
Businesses can tap into how likely a customer is to recommend their brand with Net Promoter Scores (NPS), which measures valuable insight into how the overall customer experience is perceived, and which areas can be improved.
A seamless omnichannel service
Omnichannel takes your communication avenues and brings them all together, offering your customers true freedom in how they interact with your business.
Cloud contact centre solutions allows for a fluid transition between communication channels. Seamlessly move a customer from an initial email or web chat to an instant messaging platform, then a voice call. It’s all about making the customer journey as intuitive and as easy as possible.
How omnichannel contact centres provide incredible CX
Your contact centre needs to evolve in line with customer expectations and their demands are ever-changing. However, by using a scalable, cloud contact centre solution to digitise your customer journey, you can deliver a truly bespoke service. This level of personalisation is key to building an incredible CX.
The crux is to use your contact centre to deliver meaningful moments for the customer. By providing your team with the tools to communicate with customers through chat, video, social media, and more, you create one, unified experience. Customers want to move seamlessly when navigating a brand, but only 7% of retailers are providing a ‘complete, unified commerce experience’.
Omnichannel provides a great CX by giving customers the freedom to interact with your brand however they want, at a moment’s notice. A successful omnichannel contact centre removes the obstacles between communication channels, ensuring the customer journey can be as dynamic as possible with little to no friction.
Customers want to have experiences with brands in much the same way they do with the people in their lives – easy, on any channel, and at their own pace. Lowering the barriers across your brand with an omnichannel contact centre service helps build a fantastic CX.
Delivering the CX customers want
Digital-savvy customers want something different. An integrated omnichannel contact centre enables you to talk to them in new, more effective ways. By working with a partner with expertise in cloud contact centre solutions, you can digitise your journey and automate your processes to make them more effective than ever.
Get in touch with us today to learn more about scalable, omnichannel solutions to evolve your contact centre and offer an unbeatable CX.
Discover how exciting new technologies will enhance agent and customer experiences in our latest guide: How AI and the Cloud Can Enhance Your Contact Centre.
