Sure, the term “help desk” is a bit of an anachronism these days, but a rose by another name… Or so the saying goes.
Whether you call yourself a Support Centre or a Contact Centre or a Call Centre, the fact remains that you and your team are there to help people – your clients and customers.
And as we move more and more of our lives online, our expectations of the support we get from the companies we do business with are changing rapidly.
So how do you keep up?
Industry researcher Forrester has recently released its 2019 Contact Centers for Customer Service Playbook. The playbook sets out a four-pillar strategy for helping your team and your business adapt to market shifts, and integrate new approaches to better serve your customers and your bottom line.
Customer-centric culture
It’s not just the people working the phones and chat lines that need to think ‘customer first’. Everyone, from the CEO to the warehouse crew, needs to have a shared focus on how his or her work can boost the customer experience. And the best way to achieve this is by giving each of them the power to improve. A culture that supports everyone’s contributions and ideas to refine processes and explore ways to serve the customer better is one that emits the essence of service excellence every day, just as a matter of course.
Some of the changes you or your team implement may be small and subtle, while others are larger scale, but they will all emerge from that single-minded focus of creating a service customers love, and keep coming back for.
AI opens the doors to more fulfilling work
According to the Forrester report, automation and artificial intelligence may be ‘eating jobs’, but the jobs they are taking are the lower-skilled ones – the ‘boring, repetitive’ jobs that fewer and fewer of us are pursuing.
This clears the path for contact centre agents (and other staff) to help customers and clients with more complex – and more fulfilling – problems. They’re better able to interact and engage with customers, to build a deeper relationship with them, and even get their feedback and ideas on how we can serve them better.
And in a world where more of our interactions are online and impersonal, creating a deep personal connection with your customers through positive, engaged contact centre teams revives the ‘olde worlde corner store’ feeling – when we were recognised, seen, and heard, and not just another faceless customer ID.
Businesses which understand that, and strive to deliver that experience to their customers, will become beacons of excellence in the broader market.
Executing service excellence
Premier Contact Point exists to help you define and deliver service excellence for your organisation, in customer service and beyond. Talk to us today about where you are now, and where you want to be, and we’ll help you design a practical solution to get you – and your customers – on the path to success.
