Are You Stuck with A Legacy Call Center Solution?

Call center solutions from companies like Avaya and Aspect might let you check a lot of the boxes—after all, customers can get connected to an agent via an IVR. Maybe you’ve even invested in chat and email capabilities. So why are your Net Promoter Sore (NPS) and customer satisfaction scores so low? Though your call center is working, what future does it have? Is your current vendor offering new capabilities that can deliver a next generation customer experience? Can they keep up with your business goals and brand promise?

Your call center isn’t keeping up with customers, so maybe your vendor should be shown the way out.

A lack of innovation and low NPS are telling you that if things don’t change, your call center will hurt your business. Last year’s Customer Experience ROI Study from Watermark Consulting confirms why delivering good customer experience is good business. It analyzed the stock performance of customer experience leaders versus laggards:

  • Leaders outperformed the broader market, generating a total return that was 35% higher than the S&P 500 Index.
  • Laggards trailed far behind, posting a total return that was 45% lower than that of the broader market.

What’s behind this surprising difference? It is simply stated with stats from the US Chamber of Commerce: 68% of customers leave a business because they are upset with the customer service they received. What makes this number even more significant is the effect existing customers have on the future. According to Gartner, 80% of your company’s future revenue will come from 20% of your existing customers. Retaining your customers by providing great customer experience is profitable, sound business.

Your vendor no longer values your needs and you can no longer settle for a legacy call center.

Here’s a troubling reality that might sound familiar: you can have the boxes checked, but you’re losing customers. A long-time customer using the same phone, as always, calls your business with a billing issue after no response to an email inquiry. After requesting a call conducted in English from your IVR again, and after entering an account number three times, he finally is connected to agent whose first question is, “Can I have your account number please?” Oh, and the agent didn’t have a record of the email, either. All the right information was provided to sort out the issue, but instead your customer left the conversation feeling annoyed by your firm and wishing he had his precious time back. What do you think his satisfaction level was after that interaction?

You’ve considered moving to an omnichannel engagement center so you can deliver the support your customers want. But first, you’ll need to accept that today’s customers are digitally savvy, social media-minded, mobile-first, and they expect seamless, personalized communications across all channels and touchpoints. They want quick resolutions, proactive service, and efficient self-service options. Service is a key competitive differentiator and no business today can afford to deliver anything less than an exceptional customer experience.

Your vendor can’t support your omnichannel customer experience plan.

Even after explaining your goals, your vendor has not added your requests to their roadmap, and in some cases has chosen to end-of-life your call center solution. This is a common complaint. Many companies struggle to create great experiences, but can’t because of the limitations of their outdated call center systems from Avaya, Aspect, and other legacy ACD, PBX and telephony vendors. These outdated solutions can’t provide seamless engagement across all channels and touchpoints to support the level of service customers now expect. A common strategy to circumvent this challenge is to add digital point solutions. However, this only leads to fragmented customer journeys and substantial IT headaches. Your customers want to do business with companies that provide great customer experiences, period.

The real solution to delivering a great customer experience is an omnichannel transformation. This transformation begins with replacing your legacy-based ACD, PBX, or telephony infrastructure with an integrated, customer experience platform that can interoperate with your existing systems and support all channels and touchpoints. So the next time that customer has a billing issue, he’ll automatically receive communications in his language of choice and be quickly routed to the best agent to handle his inquiry. The agent will be able to see the email explaining the customer’s billing inquiry that started the current journey, and begin the call ready to help. Delivering context across all channels means agents will be better equipped to provide a great omnichannel customer experience.

Nothing improves a relationship more than feeling valued and heard.

Are you ready to provide omnichannel, next generation customer experience? With a unified 360-degree view from a single integrated contact center you can design customer journeys, make them actionable, and monitor their success.

Would you like to manage workloads more effectively and empower your agents? Do you need better insights to help you achieve your business objectives, such as new customer acquisition, happy customers, product sales, and customer support?

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