Mastering the voice channel is key to empathy

Consumers today expect a smooth omnichannel experience — one that connects them seamlessly across digital and human channels for personalized support.

When they do reach an agent, they expect to be known and have their issue resolved in the first interaction. Positive voice experiences are critical for boosting customer satisfaction. In fact, during COVID-19, one in six US consumers called the contact center just to hear a human voice.

For organizations, providing a consistent voice experience is a complex operation. On the staffing side, there’s high turnover, remote working, the struggle to onboard new hires and the need to keep workers continually trained. And the job isn’t always easy: identifying the customer correctly, toggling between systems and screens, finding the correct information to assist the customer, dealing with frustrated customers who have potentially reached dead ends before.

Winning in every customer interaction means putting empathy into action and modernizing your approach to voice. Here’s how.

Use data and AI to listen?

Who is the customer? Where have they been? What have they done? How are they feeling??

By bringing all your channels onto one platform and connecting them with your CRM system, you can use digital engagement technology with artificial intelligence (#AI) to identify the customer directly, have a complete customer history and accurate information about their journey across all channels. Sentiment analysis can also tell you how they’re feeling.

Understand intent and predict the right path

What is the customer trying to achieve? How can we best help them??

AI-driven intent mining tools can quickly learn and understand a customer’s intention with accuracy. AI and automation have transformed the way HELPLINE, a European IT services company, handles its average 50,000 requests per day. #Chatbots and #voicebots are the first point of contact for every interaction. They resolve simple user requests and use predictive routing to send more complicated inquiries directly to the right technician, eliminating long IVR menus and boosting customer experience.

Harness knowledge to drive outcomes?

Which are the right resources to help the customer???

There are many exciting tools transforming how agents assist customers in the moment. With 360-degree customer information and the support of agent-assist technology that surfaces knowledge and resources in real time, employees are well prepared. Speech and text analytics support real-time monitoring and quality management; AI provides coaching and training recommendations; and gamification creates friendly competition. And unified communications increase collaboration and enable agents to quickly get the advice or insight they need.

Use journey data to your advantage?

How do we make it better next time???

When optimizing the voice experience, it’s essential to understand the types of issues and questions that lead customers to the contact center. Many of the answers are in your journey #data.

Journey data can reveal which interactions best solve specific customer problems. It can surface digital and IVR sticking points and ways to resolve them. And it can help optimize pathways, so customers have the best experience when moving from a digital to a voice interaction.

The human voice — enhanced?

As the voice of your company, agents can create exceptional customer experiences — when you empower and support them to do so. And, because voice remains a critical channel, you need a modern approach that orchestrates the entire journey to optimize interactions and drive business outcomes.

To learn how to modernize voice in your #contactcenter, download our practical guide today.