At the beginning of 2020, from the customer service sector we were facing a moment of radical change, of technological transformation. This situation that was thought to arise in the coming years, has been accelerated by COVID-19, since during these months we have had to manage all the activity and relationship with Customers and Employees remotely, something unimaginable for everyone at the beginning of last year.
This type of management has meant that Contact Centres have played a relevant role, facilitating many procedures and contributing to the consequent reduction of risks by avoiding face-to-face contact, a trend that is likely to continue over time.
This pandemic has been a challenge for everyone, especially for the digitisation of companies, and has made it clear that there are a number of trends that will continue in 2021 and that we should not be left behind. At the level of internal management with the Employee, teleworking has forced us to adopt new collaborative tools and to further enhance the ones we already had:
- Tools to control the efficiency of agents and the quality of service. In our case, we have 2Mares, a collaborative tool for the corporate standardisation of processes, knowledge management, and good practices.
- Collaborative work tools that allow fluid collaboration and communication between teams through different functionalities such as chat, calls, videoconferences, online work, and meetings with groups of people.
- E-learning tools, which are being consolidated with the implementation of teleworking. With their use, we make the employee the centre of their own training and development.
All these internal digital transformations are directly reflected in the Customer, who is the one who perceives the value they provide. Customer Experience is the direct result of the commitment and behaviour of Employees, brand ambassadors, and the best promoters of any company.
In addition to these, some of the trends to improve this Customer Experience and that we must consider in the future are:
- Cloud Computing: digitising and designing the Costumer Journey in the cloud allowing us to better adapt to new technologies that may arise in the future. In addition, we will be able to take advantage of the contact with the Customer to enrich our knowledge about them and improve their experience, so that their perception of the company, their commitment, and, therefore, their potentiality are increased.
And all this, we must integrate with a CRM so that this customer information is centralised, and thus have all the information in one place. This will allow a broader vision of the business, helping work teams to focus more on generating value for Customers and the company itself.
- Voice of the Customer (VoC): allowing massive data analysis to help us develop the Customer Journey Map, which may have been altered by the crisis. It is necessary to have all the information on each Customer: transactional with the company and additional external information, with the essential objective intention of personalising the interaction, anticipating their needs, and offering them the most advantageous solution at all times.
- Omnichannel: a model that ensures that, throughout the entire experience with us, the Customer enjoys a coherent, consistent, and seamless interaction through any channel they choose to use.
- Understanding the Customer during the crisis: the uncertainty generated by the pandemic can undermine customer confidence, which is why companies, more than ever, must adapt to their needs in order to maintain or reinforce it. We must customise their experience even more.
- Virtual Assistants: nine out of ten customers now expect their service and support queries to be resolved within 24 hours, so automation and AI can make a difference. Integrating a personalised chatbot to answer frequently asked questions or an automated callback feature so a Customer does not have to be put on hold, will help save time and meet their needs, thereby dramatically improving brand loyalty.
The ultimate goal is to focus on combining Artificial Intelligence with the personal interaction of agents, a new concept which will benefit both the Customer Experience and the Employee Experience, as it will be more collaborative and tend to co-creation.
