Johannesburg, 19 Aug 2022
Contact centres are becoming the last port of call for customers after they have been unable to find answers or resolve problems on digital channels. This makes it even more important for organisations to empower their contact centre agents with the skills and technology they need to address customer problems and deliver excellent service.
This is according to speakers participating in a webinar on customer service of the future, hosted by Synthesis, AWS and Salesforce.
Roark Raman, Amazon Connect Specialist at AWS, said: “The revolution of customer service is being driven by the voice of the customer, with growing demands to self-serve. Contact centre transformation is being driven by disruption brought about by customers themselves. Five years ago, the contact centre was the frontline and first point of call. What we see now is that customers want to self-serve. So when they eventually reach out to the call centre they have already failed at having their problem solved, so the contact centre is becoming the area of escalation.”
This is echoed by the latest global Salesforce Research “State of Service” report, which found that 83% of customers expect to interact with someone immediately when they contact a company, and 82% expect to solve complex problems by talking to one person. However, 63% of agents say it’s difficult to balance speed and quality of service. The report said that agents are now facing an influx of more complex cases, with anxious customers who are harder to satisfy.
Raman said: “This means agents have to be enabled with the technology and information they need to resolve the customer’s problem and deliver the service they expect. The contact centre has turned into a complex hub of insights, skilled people, enterprise systems, and connections to various departments. Organisations need to make it easier for agents to take advantage of the information and for customers to solve their problems.”
Archana Arakkal, Practice Lead: Intelligent Data Engineering at Synthesis, said: “It can be a challenge for organisations to understand in real time what a customer wants, what their journey has been up till that point, and why they are unhappy. AWS Connect and Salesforce have a lot of the tools that can help.”
Julie Barlow, Service Cloud Account executive at Salesforce, said: “When customers have questions, the service team must be equipped to answer them quickly – frictionless service is important. Salesforce Service Cloud enables them to be faster and more productive and it reduces costs. On average, customers see a 30% increase in satisfaction on net promoter score when using Salesforce.”
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