We’ve all had terrible experiences calling in for customer service. And we know the damage they can do to customer relationships. A study by Accenture said 51% of customers who experienced poor customer service switched providers in 2013. A survey by YouGov revealed 76% of respondents would switch after just one unpleasant contact center experience. Given today’s technology, it should be easy to dazzle customers who call in for support. Yet, Fonolo says that say only 26% of customers claim to be satisfied with the support they received from customer service centers. Adapting to solve the concerns the other 74% of your customers have can require tapping skills across your entire distributed organization, which can lead to complex multi-site interaction flows involving the coordination of dozens of systems. The simplicity of WebRTC makes evolving contact centers into a powerful customer solution machine both realistic and and very cost effective.
What’s wrong with contact centers:
As much as we all like to use the term ‘contact center’, too frequently what customers get is a disconnected menu of self-service options backed up by a call center. They call in, wait on hold, and talk to an agent through the background chatter of all the other agents within range of the headset mic, then often wait again when another agent is needed. It can be a painful, drawn-out affair reminiscent of a trip to the dentist.
Consumers complain that issues take too long to resolve, they are transferred over and over and forced to re-explain the issue each and every time, and they too infrequently end up with someone that is truly skilled at resolving their issue. And then of course, there are the communication issues that arise when agents are limited to verbal exchanges with customers not well versed in simple technical jargon. The technical support horror stories like the person that wrote “click” on the top of their desk when an agent advised them to right click on the top corner of their desktop, are still too prevalent given the technology available to make the service experience more clear.
How WebRTC makes contact centers better:
WebRTC makes it possible to unify every type of contact, and tie all your experts into the contact center, bringing more knowledge and faster resolution to customers. One of the highest growth media for support is web chat. As demand for chat grows (reports say 73% of customers are satisfied with live chat support), contact center leaders need to be able to integrate it into their array of communications technologies. With WebRTC, a chat agent can very quickly transition a live chat session into a voice call to clarify any issues, or a video call to get a look at the actual problem. And if technical details are required, a manual or diagram can easily be shared over WebRTC.
A WebRTC application can in effect bring every person within your organization into direct contact with your customers. That’s a good thing. It means, agents can bring experts in on the conversation without placing the customer on another hold. The moments of truth with customers can be more efficient and pleasing which is healthy for your business.
The happiness surrounding effective support conversations spreads to the agents as well. 92% of consumers report perceived agent happiness has an impact on their impression of the brand. The integrated communications experience enabled by WebRTC allows your agents’ to be better and makes their job easier, which in turn makes them happier on the phone, which in turn makes them even better. A virtuous circle, for sure.
WebRTC can also help you tear down technical barriers to providing the right support to customers and prospects in the midst of a web interaction. It dramatically simplifies click-to-call functionality that can get callers where they need to be the first time by recognizing where the call was initiated, e.g. if a customer was reviewing a copy of their bill when they clicked “support” they are directed straight to the billing department. Precise call direction reduces your queue-depth and eliminates the frustration customers encounter when navigating complex voice self-service menus. You can even program your system to recognize analytics patterns typical of a customer with a certain issue and proactively reach out to those site visitors with a solution. More delight and positive word of mouth.
Everyone profits:
WebRTC gives you the ability to manage all aspects of your contact center through a centralized interface with less hardware and fewer applications. By routing communications over an Internet connection you cut costs and enable your system for SIP trunking which, in turn, offers even more savings and efficiencies. And WebRTC works well with other technologies without needing patches or upgrades; the upgrade path is simply reloading your web application.
At Flowroute, we celebrate these advances in the power and transparency of communications and we get excited about working with our customers to enable these powerful capabilities, particularly when they enable superior customers service. Carrier support of WebRTC is critical to providing organizations the flexibility to serve consumers in the best way possible, without giving up any reliability, quality or control. In a future post we will dive into how your carrier should support interaction flows that link your entire organization, including at-home agents, to your customer through the use of WebRTC and similar technologies.
