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Life was simpler when you were a kid. You mowed the lawn and then you got paid. But what if the lawn mower’s gas tank was empty? Or perhaps it was a rusty push mower, left over from decades ago. You knew what needed to be done, but it certainly made the job tougher when you did not have what you needed to go do it.
You’re now a grown-up in a business suit rather than a kid in a baseball cap, but the fundamental problem is the same. Sometimes, you don’t have what you need to get the job done, or to do it well. As a youngster, you could simply raid your piggy bank to buy the gas or sharpen the blade. Away you went. Job done, pay collected.
Funding Your Contact Center Roadmap
It’s not so easy now for contact center investments. In the business world, you know what needs to be done, but it’s likely much more difficult to achieve.
Today, your customers have to find it easy to interact with you via phone, email, chat, text message, and social media. If you ignore emerging channels of communication, it is at your own peril – and your company’s. And that’s not all you have to worry about. Now, customers expect your agents to have complete knowledge of their previous interactions. Your CIO is talking about customer journey mapping. The legal department is asking you to ensure that contact center agents meet regulatory requirements, and you know advanced technologies like speech analytics could help advance the customer experience you deliver. And the list goes on.
So, how do you open your company’s piggy bank to fund these things?
First, you need facts. Facts that will speak to the CIO or IT Director, or whoever holds the purse strings, in a language they understand. If your company needs to modernize your contact center, and you need to build a compelling business case for contact center investments, consider the facts below:
Fact #1: Today’s consumers expect an omnichannel experience. Forrester Research shows 69% of online consumers expect to move between customer service channels without having to repeat themselves. When your agents already know a customer’s history, no one wastes time explaining – or listening to – a recap of previous interactions. This can lead to a significant reduction in handle time that shrinks costs in a big way.
Fact #2: An omnichannel customer experience boosts customer retention. According to Abderdeen, “Companies that connect all their customer service channels… report 89% customer retention, compared to 33% for those that haven’t.” When customers come back, they spend more money with your company.
Fact #3: You can reduce hardware and maintenance costs by moving to open, standards-based contact center software and solutions. When your ACD runs on proprietary hardware, you’re stuck – you have no choice but to pay what the vendor asks. And you’re likely to see those costs go up, not down.
The benefits of having a modern contact center can be endless. Abandon calls drop because callers are getting to the right place the first time. Social media disasters are preempted and diverted. Agents are more fully utilized. Customer satisfaction increases. Undoubtedly you can add to this list.
Do you need help presenting these benefits in a way that motivates decision makers to open their wallets to modernize your contact center?
Join us for a webinar on February 18 titled, Building the Business Case for Contact Center Modernization. You’ll to gain valuable pointers on how you can justify the expenditures you know that are needed to bring your contact center solutions into the 21st century. Register here today!
