3 Keys to Closing the Cross-Channel Gap

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Takeaways from Subway and LiveVox Session at CCW Winter 2019 on three ways to close the cross channel gap.

At the 2019 Winter Customer Contact Week in Nashville, over 300+ contact center leaders joined together to share, explore, and learn about the latest ideas and innovation helping businesses find solutions to omnichannel challenges – some of which were noted in their recent survey:

  • 63% of organizations are not measuring their ability to honor channel preference
  • Fewer than 25% of businesses can handle complex interactions in digital channels
  • Needing to repeat information, difficult self-service and inaccurate or inconsistent information are the greatest sources of customer frustration.

To help tackle some of these challenges, engagement operation leader from Subway, Susanne Sasso, and Digital Product GM, LiveVox, Boris Grinshpun, joined forces to host a series of thought leadership roundtables on the lessons learned and best practices to help those still struggling. Attendees of the session titled, “Omnichannel: Delivering World-Class Experiences through Connected Channels” had some interesting discussions, 3 main takeaways include:

Unified customer profiles

As the ways a customer engages with contact centers multiply, across voice, email, SMS, website, chatbots and more — so does the volume and location of data that informs contact centers who a customer is.

Contact centers, therefore, must make strides to invest and adopt ways to unify these siloed data elements in order to build a solid foundation for understanding and providing a unified digital engagement strategy.

This is usually achieved by leveraging modern CRMs to capture and manage multichannel interactions — creating universal profiles — that can also be leveraged to configure multichannel strategies.

Unified insight

One of the biggest oversights that can happen in the push towards omnichannel is foregoing historic best practices of optimization. Each new channel is essentially the addition of a new workflow– understanding what works, what doesn’t work, why, and how to adjust it – is key to advancing each new channel. Attempting to add all workflows at once and without these best practices lead to confusion, disconnected experiences, and dissatisfaction.

Tools such as analytics, quality management, and workforce management have been leveraged to achieve this. However, these tools have historically been focused on voice activity. Contact centers must also make investments to evolve and integrate these tools to include new digital channels. In doing so, contact center leaders are empowered to incrementally add and optimize each new channel into their workflows.

Tools such as analytics, quality management, and workforce management have been leveraged to achieve this. However, these tools have historically been focused on voice activity. Contact centers must also make investments to evolve and integrate these tools.

Unified configurations

Perhaps the most overlooked yet equally critical element of closing the cross-channel gap, is the ability to make changes across the entire customer journey. While simple enough to understand, these changes in reality, often require heavy IT support and multiple steps in order to achieve a simple change. This delay often leaves heavy gaps across each channel interaction. If a change is made in an SMS interaction that is not relayed to the agent during a voice interaction, both the customer and the agent can be left confused and frustrated.

Creating an environment where universal configurations require deep integrations across each application. A project that once again comes at such a high cost in time and resources, many contact centers have not yet achieved.

At the heart of these 3 takeaways is one theme – integration. It is no surprise then that a recent Deloitte global contact center survey report noted that integration of existing applications remains a top concern among 62% of contact center leaders. This challenge will only increase as the number of digital channels continues to accelerate.

The biggest hurdle to integration is simply the time and cost required to achieve it. These projects can easily cost millions and result in years of implementation. Not many contact centers have been able to achieve this.

But cloud technology is offering a new path. One where data centralization is inherent, insight is streamlined, and configurations are made from a single desktop. To learn more about how cloud innovation is helping achieve these three key elements to closing the cross-channel gap, read our recent blog, “Introducing the LiveVox [U] Series: A Practical Path to ROI-Driven Digital Engagement” by clicking here. LiveVox will also be hosting another thought leadership event on Digital Customer Engagement at CCW’s annual conference taking place in July in Las Vegas.

Leveraging cross-channel campaign management tools

At the 2019 Winter Customer Contact Week in Nashville, contact center leaders gathered to address the growing challenges of omnichannel customer engagement. A recent survey highlighted some key pain points, revealing that many organizations struggle with measuring their ability to honor channel preference, handling complex interactions in digital channels, and addressing customer frustrations like repeating information and inaccurate responses.

To shed light on these challenges and offer solutions, engagement operation leader from Subway, Susanne Sasso, and Digital Product GM from LiveVox, Boris Grinshpun, hosted thought leadership roundtables. In their session, “Omnichannel: Delivering World-Class Experiences through Connected Channels,” attendees engaged in insightful discussions. Three main takeaways emerged from these discussions:

1.       Unified Customer Profiles: As customers engage with contact centers across multiple channels, it becomes crucial to have unified data that provides a comprehensive understanding of each customer. Contact centers must invest in modern customer relationship management (CRM) systems to capture and manage multichannel interactions. Contact centers can configure effective multichannel strategies by creating universal profiles and delivering a seamless digital engagement experience.

2.       Unified Insight: When adopting new channels, building upon established optimization practices is essential. Each channel introduces a unique workflow, and understanding what works and what doesn’t is key to success. Contact centers can leverage cross channel campaign management tools like analytics, quality management, and workforce management to gain insights and optimize their operations. While these tools have traditionally focused on voice activity, contact centers must evolve and integrate them to encompass new digital channels. This empowers contact center leaders to incrementally add and optimize each channel within their workflows.

3.       Unified Configurations: Closing the cross channel gap requires the ability to make changes seamlessly throughout the customer journey. However, many contact centers struggle with delays and gaps due to complex IT requirements and disjointed systems. Achieving universal configurations necessitates robust cross channel campaign management tools.

As highlighted in a recent Deloitte global contact center survey, integration remains a top concern for contact center leaders. However, cloud technology offers a new path forward. With inherent data centralization, streamlined insights, and configurations made from a single desktop, cloud-based solutions are transforming cross channel campaign management.

To learn more about leveraging cross channel campaign management tools and how cloud innovation can help achieve these three key elements, we invite you to read our blog post, “Introducing the LiveVox [U] Series: A Practical Path to ROI-Driven Digital Engagement.”

By embracing the power of integrated cross channel campaign management tools and cloud technology, you can enhance your campaign efficiency and deliver seamless results across channels. And as always, LiveVox is here to help you along the way.

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About LiveVox

LiveVox (Nasdaq: LVOX) is a proven cloud CCaaS platform that helps business leaders redefine customer engagement and transform their contact center’s performance. Decision-makers use LiveVox to improve customer experience, boost agent productivity, empower their managers, and enhance their system orchestration capabilities. Everything needed to deliver game-changing results can be seamlessly integrated and configured to maximize your success: Omnichannel Communications, AI, a Contact Center CRM, and Workforce Engagement Management tools.

For more than 20 years, clients of all sizes and industries have trusted LiveVox’s scalable and reliable cloud platform to power billions of omnichannel interactions every year. LiveVox is headquartered in San Francisco, with international offices in Medellin, Colombia and Bangalore, India.

To stay up to date with everything LiveVox, follow us @LiveVox, visit www.livevox.com or call one of our specialists at (844) 207-6663.

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