3 Pillars of the Modern Customer Experience

By Katie Bromley, Director, Corporate Communications

A great contact center is at the heart of a great customer experience.

Consumer expectations keep evolving. Imagine how you handled a customer service issue 10 years ago versus what you would do today. For that reason, it is crucial to the success of your business to keep up with those changing consumer expectations to help create brand loyalty and increase customer satisfaction. Here are three pillars to guide your business' service strategy for the modern consumers:

1.Make it easy for customers to do business with you.

Customers want to interact with your business in a variety of ways: email, chat, social, voice, mobile. According to Ovum, 74 percent of consumers use three or more channels for customer interactions. Having the technology to support these channels is going to make it easy for your customers to communicate with you. With all of these channels at most consumers' fingertips, being available to interact on each one, at any given moment, is very important to provide the most satisfying customer experience.

2.Capture and use key consumer data.

When you have visibility into the customer's journey, you're able to better understand the potential outcomes. By capturing this data you can anticipate the customer needs and behaviors in order to proactively resolve an issue before it even arises. Not only is it important to capture the right data, but also equally as important to use that data to create a consistent customer experience throughout the business, yet "only 23 percent of companies say they provide a consistent experience throughout the customer journey." This statistic is taken from the ICMI Tool Kit, Designing the Modern customer Experience.

3.Create personal, consumer-specific relationships.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is on the rise and improving, and we expect to see more of this in the customer service strategy in the near future, however, the human touch still remains an important aspect to nurture these relationships. AI will never be able to replace the personal touch that a human can provide to the consumer. If AI is built into your strategy, determine when it's the right time for an agent to step in for a complex issue or question. 

For more information on modernizing the customer experience for your contact center, download your free copy of this ICMI Tool Kit: Designing the Modern Customer Experience.

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