Having an omni-channel contact center is becoming increasingly important as channel options are diversifying and consumers are using more touch-points to interact with companies. Consequently, 87% of customers say brands need to put more effort into providing a seamless experience across all channels. In order for businesses to remain competitive, reduce customer churn, and drive sales, contact centers must optimize their cross-channel experiences. Continue reading
Tag Archives: multi-channel
![[Whitepaper] The New Customer Service Lexicon](https://fonolo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Whitepaper-The-New-Customer-Service-Lexicon.png "[Whitepaper] The New Customer Service Lexicon")
It’s amazing to observe the rapid changes in the customer service space – the introduction of new channels and new technologies, and the subsequent changes in consumer behavior. With new communication channels appearing and evolving every year, it’s a challenge to understand how they relate to each other, and how they should all work together. New terminology can help our thought processes, if we all agree on the meanings. Conversely, ambiguity about words like “digital” or “chat” makes the navigation harder.
In this whitepaper, we’ll discuss terms that are either new to the customer service sector, or have a recently changed meaning. Hopefully this helps to steer you in the right direction! Continue reading
Picture it: Your customer service is being inundated with calls, emails, and messages through every channel – perhaps you’re facing a product recall or a Black Friday sale, or it’s just one of “those” days – how do you effectively prepare for times like these? To successfully dodge any customer experience disaster it’s important to be proactive and have preventative measures in place. When you have a reliable back-up plan, preventing disaster can be accomplished in 5 minutes or less.
At Fonolo, we think that in order to defend against disaster there are a few things that should always be in your back-up plan arsenal. The following infographic will show you just how quickly disaster can be avoided with the right tools on hand. Continue reading
![[Video] 4 Takeaways from Our Google Hangout on the Voice Channel](https://fonolo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Video-4-Takeaways-from-Our-Google-Hangout-on-the-Voice-Channel-1.jpg "[Video] 4 Takeaways from Our Google Hangout on the Voice Channel")
Last week, Fonolo hosted yet another insightful Google Hangout discussing the voice channel as a relevant medium for contact centers. This fabulous panel of contact centers experts was determined to uncover the truth behind the future of the voice channel. To save you some time, we’ve extracted video snippets showcasing highlights from the discussion.
First, let’s take a quick look at the panel of speakers: Ryan Nichols, Voice GM at Zendesk, Shep Hyken, Chief Amazement Officer at Shepard Presentations, Ian Jacobs, Senior Analyst at Forrester, Chris Thompson, VP of Enterprise Marketing at Plantronics, and Shai Berger, CEO and Co-Founder at Fonolo. Continue reading
With organizations focussing on the customer experience as a key differentiator, it’s critical that they pay close attention to consumer channel activity. As we all know the options are endless: self-service, chat, mobile apps, social media, email and the conventional phone channel. It’s no wonder why call centers have now truly become contact centers as they support customers through a variety of mediums, countries, and languages.
As time passes, digital channels will continue to grow in popularity, but what will happen to the voice channel? Dimension Data’s 2016 Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report stated that there will be growth in every digital channel, and a 12% shrinkage with the phone. The report also went on to say “that digital volumes handled by contact centers remain on track to exceed phone contacts by the end of 2016”. However, ContactBabel reported that over 65% of contact centers anticipate no change in the voice channel for the next 12 months. So which one is it? Continue reading
The multi-channel customer experience has raised a number of questions about how call centers should effectively measure the customer journey. More than ever before customers are moving across channels and devices to find support and purchase products. Whether it’s the phone, chat, social media, web, messenger or any number of channels, customers are doing a lot of things, in a lot of different places. Are all these touch-points working in synchrony, or are your customers pulling their hair out when they navigate from one to the other? That’s where customer journey tracking comes in; businesses can begin to understand their customer’s behaviors and uncover details that they otherwise wouldn’t catch. It can also measure how well each of these channels are working both individually and holistically.
Here are 4 risks you take by not making the customer journey a priority: Continue reading
Outside of traditional live agent conversations, there are many different channels customers can use to get their questions answered – this is a response to the demand from consumers to have instant gratification. Contact centers are not only challenged with meeting these high expectations; they also have to manage communication on these channels (based on their popularity) within their own line of business.
With so much talk about digital channels and how they are evolving, is it fair to say that the voice channel is no longer needed? Continue reading
Here’s a simple question: Are contact centers handling more or fewer calls compared to one year ago? How about five years ago?
It seems reasonable to expect that the rise of non-voice channels (self-service, email, chat, social media, etc.) would lead to a decrease in plain old phone calls. Thus the prevailing philosophy is that companies should focus more effort on the new channels, and less on voice. Respected industry analysis firm Dimension Data went so far as to declare a “growing irrelevance of the telephony-centric model” in its latest report.
But the data is actually not conclusive. How can we reconcile that with the philosophy above? Continue reading
The burning questions for the customer service industry today are which channels of communication are currently most relevant, and which will be most relevant down the road. In recent months, the discussion has centered around Facebook Messenger and other messaging channels.Many people are debating whether any of these platforms (Messager, Snapchat, Kik, Line, etc) can “win” the B2C communication platform war. (See here, here or here.) The fact that WeChat has seemingly “won” China, and achieved near dominance of online customer service, adds fuel to this fire. (My take on that: Will the WeChat Model Work in the West?)
Then Facebook opened Messenger to automation, i.e. “Chatbots”, and the fire went supernova. (The role of bots in customer service is the topic of a live online discussion we’re hosting next week with a great panel of experts. Register here to join the Google Hangout.)
Lost in all this glare has been Twitter, which continues to be a powerful – and popular – channel for customers to interact with businesses. This is somewhat puzzling because, on the surface, it’s not really well-suited for this purpose. What’s the secret to Twitter’s enduring popularity as a customer service channel? Continue reading
Traditionally, delivering great customer service requires striking a balance between a good experience and affordability. Chat breaks that mold. Customers increasingly prefer it over other communication channels AND companies are seeing a much lower cost-per-contact. Hallelujah!
But now the industry is at a crossroad. Chat has a close cousin called “Messaging” that has similar strengths and is growing with impressive speed. These options may seem similar on the surface, but there are important differences if you look a bit deeper. This year we will see a dramatic showdown between the two – chat and messaging – and the winner will influence how customer service is delivered for decades to come.
