Digital technology and customer service

How does digital technology improve customer service — and what does the relationship between AI, cloud, analytics, and self-service tool investments look like when translated into the service quality improvements and operational outcomes that actually justify technology spending?

Digital technology and customer service – 5 ways contact centers have had to adapt.

In many ways, digital technology and customer service are a match made in heaven. Customers value the convenience of digital channels like chat, email, and text, and businesses have found ways to make digital customer service efficient and a boon to the customer experience. Most consumers now expect businesses to provide digital channels and many organizations have stepped up to the plate accordingly.

But the marriage of digital technology and customer service hasn't necessarily been an easy concept for contact centers to adapt to. Offering digital support the right way means transforming call centers into omnichannel contact centers. Operations that once handled only inbound phone calls now support more novel contact types such as social media and text messaging (SMS).

The implications of combining digital technology and customer service affect just about every aspect of a contact center’s technology, processes, and staff.

Here are some examples of the required changes:

Agents

Chatting and responding to social media comments are very different activities from handling phone calls, so agents need to learn new skills. Additionally, if an organization's combination of digital technology and customer service includes the addition of more self-service capabilities, agents will be handling higher complexity issues that customers can’t solve for themselves - another outcome that may require training.

Forecasting and scheduling

The workforce management tasks of forecasting volume and scheduling agents need to be altered when an organization implements digital channels. For example, new algorithms need to be used to estimate digital demand and newly multi-skilled agents add complexity to scheduling.

KPIs and reporting tools

Digital contact types require new KPIs and modifications to reporting and analytics tools so that business leaders can get a holistic view of operations and the customer experience. Also, many of the traditional call center metrics – like Average Handle Time and Talk Time – are less relevant for digital channels.

Quality assurance

Quality management standards for voice interactions are different from those of chat interactions. For example, you don't have to worry about spelling and punctuation during a phone call. Therefore, quality management standards and processes need to be adjusted to account for these new digital technology contacts.

Technology

Okay, this an obvious one, but it needs to be high on the list because it's important. Contact center technology not only has to support more channels, but it has to adopt a unified omnichannel strategy in order to offer a consistent and seamless experience regardless of which channel a customer uses on any given day.