Data and insights for this article stem from Aberdeen’s research report entitled, “Four Pillars for a Best-in-Class Digital Experience Program in 2023 (and Beyond),” written by Vice President & Principal Analyst Omer Minkara.
Managing digital experiences is no longer a differentiating factor for organizations, but a crucial aspect that is now considered table stakes. As stakes get higher, firms that fail to adapt quickly risk losing their market share. This is why business leaders around the world have recognized the importance of digital experience (DX) programs, which are pursued as a strategic initiative pivotal to company success.
In larger organizations, DX programs have typically been delegated to the CMO, but contact center leaders are increasingly recognizing the crucial impact that the contact center plays on the success of their DX initiatives. In fact, mid-sized and smaller firms are also seeking ways to build and nurture Best-in-Class DX programs through the contact center.
The Aberdeen Contact Center Trends survey found a leading group of businesses that excel in achieving superior results in CX, operational and financial metrics – these Best-in-Class firms have mastered modern digital experience programs and reap the rewards of their savvy approach. Shared across the Best-in-Class are four pillars of success that enable them to excel in total CX excellence when managing activities across all digital channels.
1. Make Self-Service an Integral Part of Your DX Activities
Traditional self-service was designed to help customers help themselves so that firms can focus on handling fewer conversations through assisted service channels (e.g., phone, chat, email, text messaging). As such, deflecting customer issues and reducing costs were top objectives when it comes to deploying and improving self-service results. However, times have changed. Leading contact center and CX leaders recognize such escalating and changing customer expectations and have transformed their activities from traditional to smart self-service – a term used to define companies using analytics and AI capabilities to continuously fine-tune self-service activities through all self-service channels such as the web, interactive voice response (IVR), IVA, and online communities.
2. Use the Power of Knowledge to Supercharge Agent Productivity & Self-Service Experiences
The contact center runs on knowledge. Every time a customer calls, sends a chat message, email, or engages a firm via self-service, companies need relevant, timely and accurate knowledge to address client needs. As such, knowledge management has long been a key pillar of contact center programs. Traditional knowledge management, however, is insufficient in helping firms to keep-up with modern digital experience programs. For that, firms must evolve their activities to adopt smart knowledge management that’s more dynamic and data-driven to keep up with the pace and scope of changes affecting their activities.
3. Put Customers At the Center of Your DX Program
Firms with a mindset of adding more channels and using each channel for specific issue types have learned that it’s not enough to satisfy customers. Instead of solely seeking to expand their channel-mix, modern business leaders must master using all digital channels in harmony – and in a customer-centric manner – to extract maximum potential gain from digital engagement programs. Customer-centric digital engagement refers to firms truly connecting. They build and execute smart interaction workflows that optimize issue resolution across all channels while leveraging data in combination with analytics, AI, and automation to optimize use of all channels to deliver effortless and hyper-personalized experiences across all channels and by all business departments.
4. Deploy Proactive Engagement
While addressing client needs when customers seek help is still vital for the health and longevity of customer relationships, modern buyers have heightened expectations. Customers look for businesses to communicate with them in a proactive fashion to inform them of potential issues that may affect product/service experience and advise on the steps the company is taking to address the issues.
Wrapping it all up, Best-in-Class DX programs should focus on making self-service an integral part of their activities, use the power of knowledge to supercharge agent productivity & self-service experiences, put customers at the center of their DX program. To learn more, be sure to read the report linked in the side rail, and contact our team today to learn how our research can ignite market realities for your organization today!
