(The Sorry) State of CX
CX performance has dropped, or stayed stagnant at best, over the last couple of years, according to most industry surveys. The Forrester CX Index trend says it all. The percentage of companies offering "excellent customer service" (score of 85% to 100%) has been: 1% in 2016, 0% in 2017, and 0% in 2018.
The Problem
Forrester Consulting surveyed 5,000 consumers on our behalf about their biggest pain points in getting customer service. The top hurdle, by far, was lack and consistency of agent knowledge.
Contact centers have been trying to address this issue with training—including onboarding and training new agents and providing ongoing training to existing agents—to the tune of $10K to $40K per year, depending on the company and the industry. In fact, US companies spent $70.65 billion on employee training in 2016 alone. Yet agent knowledgeability, in the context of customer service, remains a big issue. Clearly, while training is important, it is not able to address agent performance when the customer is on the line. A SurveyMonkey survey of over 600 contact center agents worldwide proves it. Not surprisingly, the agent pain points had mirrored the consumer pain points, with finding the right answers to customer questions being the top issue.
The Causes
Despite continued investment in onboarding and training, why are agents struggling to answer customer questions? The reasons are manifold, but here are some key ones:
The Solution
The answer lies in a modern knowledge management (KM) system, infused with AI, that can guide agents (and customers in the case of self-service) to the answer needle in a haystack of content and through customer conversations. Modern AI-infused KM also addresses all the other issues mentioned earlier: explosion of and constant changes to information, increasing query complexity, next-gen attention span, "all-gen" forgetting curve, "guided" lifestyle, and legacy customer service and knowledge tools. Besides process guidance with next best steps that reflect regulatory compliance and organizational best practices, modern KM systems also excel in findability, knowledge federation, personalization, omnichannel delivery, and proactive engagement. Moreover, modern agent desktops offer hyper-easy access to such guidance. For example, eGain Advisor™ Desktop for agents provides a context-focused, problem-solving view of the customer with push-button access to guidance with a "Solve" button.
The Transformation
Here are some real-life results from our blue-chip clientele, powered by our knowledge and AI guidance tool:
All these clients had significant agent training programs but also thought that in-band search and process guidance for agents and customer self-service systems would be a great complement to training. They were more than right—the proof was in the results pudding, which was nothing short of transformational!
About Anand Subramaniam:
Anand Subramaniam is SVP of Marketing for eGain. Prior to eGain, Anand served as an executive in corporate and product marketing, as well as product management and pre-sales roles at companies such as Oracle, Intel and Autodesk as well as startups.
About eGain Corporation:
eGain customer engagement platform automates digital-first, omnichannel experiences across all touch points. Powered by AI, machine learning, knowledge, and analytics, our top-rated software optimizes customer journeys with virtual assistance, messaging hub, and desktop to serve customers, reduce cost, and improve compliance.
Published: Thursday, August 2, 2018
4.) | SCC Services Group Contact Center Operations Performance Management In today’s competitive business environment, contact center and marketing professionals are constantly challenged to manage a growing business, achieve superior performance levels and at times are asked to support services and products that are becoming more complex. Faced with this reality, the consulting disciplines that SCC Services Group focuses on are operations management and service delivery excellence in the customer service, contact center and brand marketing arenas. Our consulting practice puts emphasis on: - Contact Center Operational Assessments - Human Capital Management - Organizational Structure - Brand Marketing - Strategic Planning - Sales and Customer Care Tra... (read more) |
5.) | The Taylor Reach Group Established in 2003, The Taylor Reach Group is an award winning, call, contact centre and customer experience consulting and advisory firm. The company is based in Toronto and has offices in New York, Atlanta, Washington, Ottawa, London, Bangalore, Hong Kong and Beijing. We are vendor agnostic and do not partner with technology or outsource agencies. The only one who pays us are our clients. Each of our consultants possess a minimum of 20 years of ‘hands-on’ call/contact center operational management experience. We do not sell the pyramid, the seasoned experts you deal with through the sales process are the same people who will complete your project. Taylor Reach has worked with contact cen... (read more) |
I am checking out all the amazing and daily updated content on ContactCenterWorld.com and networking with professionals worldwide
Send To Friends Post On My Wall