Solving Contact Center Woes With Customer Engagement

"Companies that operate call centers are rethinking how they interact with customers.

—Angela Ruth

What exactly is a shareable experience? Simply put, it's when a customer sheds the identity of the generic buyer and instead enjoys individualized treatment as a valued customer. 

—Daniel Newman

How many more people does your business need to reach?

Do you want to reach more people without the usual bottlenecks? 

One way or another, your effort will need to include leverage - more in order to reach more people. One question rises to the top as you increase leverage through people or technology: how exactly will you solve the biggest problems of customer interaction and treat customers and potential customers as individuals who matter?

Some businesses build leverage for Customer Engagement by developing a resourceful Contact Center internally. The Contact Center challenges of this strategy include the allocation and management of significant resources for hiring, training, managing people and technology. This approach often works… until it fails to deliver the speed and scale and flexibility you need.  

If scale and speed and flexibility are bigger priorities, however, an external Contact Center may be the way to go. You can get the quality you expect with people and systems while scaling up or down your capacities for short-term campaigns or even longer-term partnerships.

Whichever direction do you want to go to scale and launch?

What do you need to consider? 

• Are you reaching customers by how they want to be reached, and when? 
• Are you providing enough communication channels and notifications? 
• Can you communicate with large groups of customers with minimal efforts and - even better - customized automation? 
• Can your team communicate reliably and consistently?
• Are you able to operate at scale and speed through ups and downs?

At QCSS, we have helped thousands of firms since 1991 to increase revenues and reduce costs as we become "the secret sauce" to sales & marketing success.

If you are a consultant, executive or other professional that markets or sells products or services, this is the year to learn about scaling with Contact Centers.

A Customer Contact Center is a specialized version of a traditional call center. 

Most of the time, a traditional call center is a group of call center agents who provide customer service by phone. Inbound call centers receive calls and outbound call centers make them. Call centers have been used to scale tech support, billing issues, and any customer service support you can imagine - by phone. They often push for quick call resolution to reduce costs and increase productivity - but the customer suffers.

In outbound call centers, callers focus on results such as sales calls, marketing outreach, research, surveys, fundraising, and announcements

A Customer Contact Center is distinguished by its focus on putting the customer first.

Imagine a “call center” and what do you see? People waiting on hold or being routed through endless prompts that keep them from getting what they need. Have you ever had the dreadful customer service experience that most people complain about? In short, call centers have developed a bad rap but that is changing. As phone systems are made obsolete by digital technologies, call centers are becoming Contact Centers.

A Contact Center, on the other hand improves Customer Engagement.

There are many more ways to connect with a customer beyond just over the phone. Customers expect more as well and want the advantage of the right communication channel at the right time - their time. Customers who love your brand or need your product want better ways for you to reach them and help them. If you can help them while valuing them, your company wins. 

Would you rather be called or contacted?

Which one makes you feel more cared about?

The shift from Call Center to Contact Center is subtle but powerful. Calls tend to treat the customer generically while Contact is about a greater service. With a bigger perspective and more customer knowledge, technology and resources at hand Customer Contact Centers are able to do a better job treating people as individuals and valued customers. 

This perspective is just the beginning and drives improvement across all customer touch points.

In 2020 and beyond, customers will continue to want their service to better, faster, simpler, and results. Your customer service capabilities need to grow to integrate customer relationship management (CRM) systems, tracking systems, technology support in house and on the cloud, rapid team training, constant re-alignment for new campaigns and strategies. In a complex world, you need simple solutions. 

It’s no longer an effective business practice to treat customers generically.

For example, a colleague called into an airline’s contact center to resolve an issue the other day. He was greeted by name by the automated system before being connected to a kind human who had all his records at her fingertips. The interaction was professional but casual, effective but not pushy. He spent 15 minutes on the phone until everything was resolved. 

Are you able to take the time to treat your customers as the most valuable people in your business?  

Take time today and this week to reflect on how better contact with your customers can improve your business across all bottom lines. Is it time to upgrade how you see and treat your customers? What would it be like to give them individualized treatment as a valued customer? Is a Customer Contact Center something you should consider?

We are QCSS. We empower sales teams, accelerate go-to-market tactics through lead generation, appointment setting, inside sales and maximize efficiencies to create better customer experiences through our inbound customer service. As a result, we have helped thousands of firms since 1991 to increase revenues and reduce costs as we become "the secret sauce" to sales & marketing success. Our outsource model of process, people, performance and results allows our partners to grow to the next level with high return on investment.