Is "good enough" truly enough for your customer experience?
Given that you are now competing on the customer experience, one would hope not. One would hope that when you evaluate new tools, technologies and processes, you are not simply looking for "acceptable substitutes" for the status quo but instead for opportunities to add value.
Despite often being sold an implemented in the former context, automation technology can rise to the higher standard. It can add unique, meaningful value to the customer contact operation.
Our recent Special Report on CX Automation detailed eight scenarios it can elevate the experience.
Can’t Wait For The Human Touch
In the middle of an important game, an video gamer’s account disconnects. Instead of asking the anxious customer to walk away from the console and call the customer support line, an automated chat window pops up to provide instant, native help.
Don’t Want The Human Touch
After placing a delivery order at the local pizzeria, a customer decides she is in the mood for garlic knots. Instead of going through the hassle of calling the loud restaurant, identifying herself, waiting for the employee to pull up the order, asking for the order of garlic knots and waiting for an updated price, the customer can instead text her modification using an automated interface. Recognizing the number, the bot pulls up her order, adds the garlic knots to the purchase, shares the new price point and provides an updated delivery ETA.
Patient Experiences
A patient is dealing with a medical ailment in a private region of his body. Instead of engaging in an awkward conversation with a live person, the patient types the symptoms into a self-service portal. The portal identifies the likely issue, while also offering the chance to input insurance information and schedule an appointment.
“Delivering a seamless and guided patient onboarding experience in a self-service web or mobile portal that reduces customer effort and enables a seamless handoff to an agent should the customer decide to contact an agent,” says Bobby Amezaga of Salesforce with regard to another form of automated patient experience.
Fostering Personalization
When a customer transfers to the live agent, the CRM system automatically gleans – and reports – relevant insights about the customer, purchasing history and ongoing issue. As the interaction progresses, the system assesses the customer’s sentiment and provides the agents with recommended responses that are contextually and emotionally relevant.
Optimizing Case Management
“For high-volume case management, using machine learning to predict case fields, auto-triage, and intelligently route cases to the right agent at the right time, and preparing the case with the right information for the human agent to resolve the issue quickly,” shares Amezaga.
Elevating Reporting
“[Many contact centers] are still preparing and sending out the same reports that we did in the 1980s,” says Gene Howell of CURO Financial, who recommends automating the process. “[Automation can help with] going through the reports, looking for outliers, and ultimately taking work off supervisors … automation can instantly give you the answers that used to come at the end of an hour-long analysis meeting.”
Improving Training
A learning management system is connected to the company’s workforce optimization platform. When a particular agent’s performance time drops below a certain threshold, it triggers an action from the LMS. The LMS automatically scans call logs and speech analytics data and either alerts a supervisor or sends relevant training material directly to the agent.
Revolutionizing Gamification
When CURO Financial’s agents hit key performance goals, they receive currency that can be spent at a digital “call center market.” The market includes items ranging from snacks to scheduling perks. The automated gamification system allows CURO to offer the correct incentives (since agents are selecting their own “prizes”), optimize the budget (“prizes” are only bought if performance goals are hit) and eliminate human involvement (managers do not need to “run” the incentive program).