Janet Solomon was the opening headliner at the 18th Annual Customer Contact East: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange, where she shared the essential insights and strategic take-aways below. This summary will be included in the Executive MindXchange Chronicles, an e-book compilation of key ideas from the event.
SESSION ABSTRACT
As a result of the pandemic, the contact center has become more relevant than ever to your enterprise. This session challenged participants to examine their current environment and issues, define an aspirational future state, and develop strategies and plans to get to that future state.
KEY TAKE-AWAYS
- Insight on positioning the contact center as the cornerstone of your enterprise servicing strategy
- Framework for developing your strategic vision and implementation plan
- Lessons learned for measuring your success and communicating with the C-Suite
INTRODUCTION
Headliner Janet Solomon kicked off the event with a live poll:
How many of you have major initiatives on your roadmap for 2022‐23?
72% have
How confident are you that you will achieve your business case ROI?
31% were extremely confident
59% were somewhat confident
OVERVIEW
Solomon advised participants to use this point in time to make sure they were working with advocates within the business to align with the evolving “new normal.” As she noted, the leadership landscape has changed. “There has never been a time when leadership has been more relevant, not just for the contact center, but for the organization as a whole.”
She cautioned against doing things a certain way simply because they have always been done that way. Many facets of our world have changed and enterprises must adapt and challenge the way business is conducted. For instance, beware of creating the same processes with new technology. Think through how best to develop your new strategy and how to execute it.
KEY INSIGHTS
Digital tools
We love them, but you must look at the human aspect, too! If you cannot easily resolve a problem in your digital space, you must have competent people on the phones answering calls for you.
We are no longer just a contact center being asked to drive down costs. Today, there is a new appreciation for how important our responses are to the overall organization. The contact center is the voice of your brand. You must continue to invest in the experience your customers have with your brand.
How customer experience impacts brand
Deliver “moments that matter” – make sure that whoever is responding is truly taking care of your customers – when this breaks down, it can be mean the loss of a customer.
- Human interaction is critical
- Single agent resolution is now an expectation
ACTION ITEM
Develop a strategic vision
- Define your end‐state servicing strategy
- Inventory the current experience – and then intentionally design
- Cultivate experience influencers
- Develop your plan and execute
- Measure, monitor and continuously improve
Guiding principles of service excellence
- Innovation – Scalability – Efficiency – Experience Focused – Transparent
Create a service strategy
- What is your brand promise?
- Define your aspirational experience
BEST PRACTICES
- Use data to identify pain points and how customers move along their journey
- Be honest about where your customer’s pain points originate from
- Conduct ruthless evaluations
- Use the information to build your business case ROI
- Find out what the return is on your customer experience
- Determine how CX impacts attrition of both your customer and agent base
- Spend a lot of time on social media, chats, etc. – be fully integrated with the consumer experience
Key investments can drive the customer experience
- Use best practices and technology to help achieve your aspirational end‐state
- Use technology (AI) to deliver more information to agents and improve your customer experience
- Having a strong project management team behind you is essential
- Learn to tell your story to build advocacy in the C‐suite
FINAL THOUGHTS
Strategy steps: Design, develop, implement, measure, calibrate, repeat.
