In recent years, you may have noticed the term ‘Customer Experience’ appearing more frequently as you research business communication technology.
This is because, rather than merely making and receiving calls, the providers of advanced phone systems have increasingly focused on how their solutions can enhance the customer experience. Their goal is to help your team leave a positive, lasting impression through the interactions they facilitate.
Why is Customer Experience So Important?
It may sound obvious, but the experience your customers have – whether it’s their first interaction or their fortieth – can dramatically influence their future loyalty.
In fact, 61% of customers would stop doing business with a company after a poor service experience. That’s why enhancing your customer experience is so important.
However, different customers value different factors, so you can’t simply focus on speed. While speed remains important, as we’ll discuss below, the modern economy demands attention to a growing number of factors that can impress your callers and drive business growth.
Vital CX Factors
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- First Call Resolution – 68% of call centres consider first call resolution (FCR) a critical metric, as it directly impacts customer satisfaction and operational costs.
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- Omnichannel Capabilities – Calling is no longer the only option. With social media, WhatsApp, and video now commonplace, 75% of customers expect a consistent experience across multiple communication channels. Therefore, it’s essential to integrate calling with more modern platforms.
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- Call Wait Time – Over 60% of customers will only wait for two minutes before abandoning a call, highlighting the importance of answering calls promptly. However, there are other options, such as offering ‘call backs’, so customers don’t have to listen to hold music while waiting in the queue.
How Can You Improve Your Customer Experience?
Enhancing all these factors, and more, is possible with 8×8, one of the most advanced Contact Centre solutions available.
Deep System Integration
With 8×8’s extensive API library, you can connect various systems like your CRM, finance, internal collaboration tools, and more. This provides your agents with more information to speed up and resolve issues more frequently during the first interaction.
Additionally, with all your information connected, you can gain richer insights, enabling you to better manage resources and identify common issues. This allows you to resolve internal and operational challenges more swiftly.
Open Up More Channels
From email to voice, video, SMS, social media (Facebook and X), as well as WhatsApp, interactions across all your channels are centralised in one place. This means customers don’t have to repeat previous interactions, and your agents can quickly view everything from a bird’s eye perspective.
For interactions requiring more guidance, such as troubleshooting, 8×8 even allows your callers to share video with agents during phone interactions, enabling them to resolve customer problems visually – all while staying on the same call!
Screen Pops
Screen pops can take multiple forms, whether automatically surfacing important customer details, product information such as troubleshooting guides, or sales-focused tools and statistics. Screen pops prevent time being wasted searching for resources while providing a consistent experience across all interactions.
In fact, by implementing structured scripts and providing agents with the information they need now, you can reduce average handle time (AHT) by up to 30%, leading to faster resolutions and more efficient call handling!
Given that 88% of contact centres consider customer experience and expectations as key drivers of growth, the importance of delivering a seamless calling experience cannot be understated.
This is not only crucial for accelerating interactions – enabling you to handle a greater volume of calls as your business grows – but also for retaining and attracting new customers more successfully.
Whether you’re an existing 8×8 customer looking to adopt new communication channels and extract more value from your solution, or you’re considering adopting 8×8 to take advantage of the time- and resource-saving features we’ve mentioned, don’t hesitate to get in touch with our expert team on 0345 678 6646.