5 Ways to Better Orchestrate Your Customer Contact Center
A well-tuned contact center is a lot like an orchestra. It hums along gracefully, improving attitudes and adding value to the rest of your business. I made this connection last December, while watching the Kennedy Center Honors. One of the honorees was Seiji Ozawa, whose 30-year stint as conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra was highlighted by his ability to interpret music in new and innovative ways.
Let’s apply the metaphor more directly: imagine your contact center as a symphony orchestra for a moment. You and your service leadership team are the conductors, today’s business is your sheet music, and the people and tools at your disposal are your musicians. It’s time to pick up the baton and create a harmonious experience for your customers and employees. Here are five ways you can make the elements of your contact center work smoothly with your business as a whole.
1. Conduct business your way. In the same way that Seiji Ozawa guides the music on his page, guide your service department to resonate with your brand. The key principles that have made your business great should be echoed in your service solutions.
Find the places where your current service solution and your corporate ideals don’t line up, then figure out how you can bring concept and reality into alignment. This could mean improving how you match customers with like-minded representatives, developing a proactive approach to onsite service visits, or anything else you see as a cornerstone of your business.
2. Find your “sound.” Once you’ve identified a solution, it’s time to personalize it. Look for areas where you and your department excel, and tailor your tools to highlight and enhance those strengths. Like the melody of a song, this is the part of your service strategy that you want customers to remember you for.
3. Harmonize your omnichannel. Before each performance, symphony musicians listen to a note played by a single member of their team and then tune their instruments to that note. In a similar way, all of your different service tools should be tuned to one another, creating a coherent omnichannel experience. Whether customers take advantage of self-service options or connect with your agents through social media, chat, conference calls, or email, you’ll meet their needs with a single, unified interface.
4. Work in concert. All it takes is a single sour note to ruin a tune. To assure that every member of your team is on the right page, it’s important to track customer sentiment across all of your channels and interactions. By drawing correlations between agent activity and customer experiences, you can establish best practices to help keep your contact center humming along.
5. Share your vision. Think of the rest of your organization as the concert hall you play your music in. Buzzing with the benefit of your input, the entire company can gain new and expanded value. You’re constantly gaining new customer insights through agent interactions. By adding to and expanding on your existing knowledge base, you can improve understanding for your customers and coworkers alike.
The stage is set for your next great customer service performance. But will you pick up the baton? If you’re interested in learning more about how your contact center can work in harmony with the rest of your business, take a guided tour of Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
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