There has never been a more important time to ensure you continue to meet, or even exceed, your customers’ expectations, to keep them on board and your business thriving. However, for many companies, with the switch to widespread remote working, there has also never been a more challenging time to achieve this. So, we look at how you can continue to deliver exceptional customer experiences (CXs), wherever your workforce is based.
When the coronavirus crisis first hit, many organisations had to suddenly switch to large-scale remote working for the first time, often including departments which never normally worked off-site. This inevitably presented challenges, not least of all how to ensure that their contact centres could continue to deliver a high-quality CX in this new way of working. Indeed, this was a significant issue for many, as, according to one recent study, only 59% of contact centres worldwide had previously enabled just some of their staff to work remotely, pre-pandemic, but that figure rapidly rose to 74.1% as the coronavirus crisis kicked in. So, if you’ve found yourself in this position, you are not alone – this really is the beginning of a whole new era of customer services provision.
A matter of sink or swim
But just how important is providing a top-quality CX and can you afford to let this slip? Well, the simple answer is that it is vital if you want to succeed, and you cannot afford to let this slide, especially now when businesses need every customer they can get. During the initial lockdown, in spring, there may have been a certain amount of tolerance for clunky customer service where, for example, you could only contact a company via email. However, although something akin to the Dunkirk spirit may have boosted our collective patience at first, this has now run thin. In fact, so crucial is it to deliver exceptional customer service today, that it is frequently seen as even more important than the quality of product or price you offer, and can be a matter of sink or swim for businesses. Indeed, a report by PwC, which surveyed 15,000 consumers, found that one in three customers will leave a brand they love after only one poor experience, and 92% would totally abandon a company after two or three bad encounters. What’s more, exceptional customer service could also add value to your products, as research has found that 86% of buyers are actually willing to pay more for a great customer experience.
Cloud with a silver lining
So, how can you ensure that your workers can continue to deliver the exceptional customer service that you would expect from wherever they work? Well, the good news is that technology now has the perfect solution to this conundrum. In fact, pardon the pun, but it is cloud tech that offers the silver lining to this situation. By switching to a cloud-based contact centre solution, you can provide your customers with an effortless way of communicating with your business, by the channel of their choice – phone, email, live chat, social media, or video – no matter where your workforce is based. This can also help lower your operational costs, as you will no longer have the overheads of on-site servers, additional software and on-site management. In addition, by choosing a fully managed service, also known as Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS), all updates will be automatic, so the very latest features and functionality will always be available. You will also cut out the hassle of regular, often time-consuming and cost-intensive, upgrades required by traditional systems, allowing your IT department to concentrate on more pressing business goals.
