{"id":2936,"date":"2016-11-10T11:40:48","date_gmt":"2016-11-10T19:40:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/?p=2936"},"modified":"2016-11-10T11:40:48","modified_gmt":"2016-11-10T19:40:48","slug":"differentiating-brand-contact-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/differentiating-brand-contact-center\/","title":{"rendered":"Differentiating Your Brand Through Your Contact Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"blog-image\"<\/strong>Author: Blake Morgan
\n<\/strong>Originally published on CMSwire.com<\/em><\/p>\n

When you go to your local grocery store do you notice how many kinds of the same products there are? How about the fact that many cars now look the same? This new shopper reality is called commoditization. There isn\u2019t much that differentiates today\u2019s products. The only thing that truly makes them seem different is the customer experience around the product. Today\u2019s customers seek experiences that make their lives easier.<\/p>\n

Some companies are making customer\u2019s lives easier\u2014for example companies like Uber, Spotify and WhatsApp are completely changing the way consumers interact with products and services. Today\u2019s customers can essentially get any product, any time. As some companies\u2014sprint to meet customer expectations, there will be more pressure on companies that are not delivering innovative products fast and efficiently enough. This is a new customer that has serious expectations for your brand, and there are serious implications for companies that aren\u2019t able to continue to deliver improved customer experiences.<\/p>\n

The opportunities for companies to become wildly successful are many. Examples include creating thoughtful customer journeys, organizing your operations and product creation around the customer, building thoughtful user experiences, by making life easier on the customer and harder on your company and by meeting customer needs in an unprecedented way. Many companies make the mistake of doing what they\u2019ve always done. This is precisely why the average tenure of companies on the S&P 500 has shrunk from sixty one years back in 1958 to what is predicted to be fourteen years by 2026.\u00b9<\/p>\n

The Role of the Contact Center
\n<\/strong>The contact center is the place where customers literally make contact with the brand. For many brands it serves as the only opportunity to build a relationship with the customer. Even if the customer only calls one time, that individual phone call serves as an opportunity to shape the perception that the customer has about your brand. That\u2019s a huge opportunity! A customer\u2019s perception of their interaction with your brand is not shaped by one marketing message, but by the many interactions the customer has with your brand. In fact customer service is marketing\u2014helping a customer efficiently at a point of need is an important relationship building opportunity. If you can be there for that individual customer when they need help they will continue to come back and buy more, tell their friends and family. Even with all this knowledge too many companies don\u2019t see their contact center as a competitive differentiator.
\nThe Business Impact of Customer Churn
\n<\/strong>Here\u2019s the leadership challenge of the century; CEOs need to look at long-term gains rather than quarterly profits. Focusing on quarterly profits influences senior executives to make knee-jerk reactions rather than thoughtful decisions that will impact the business positively in the long run. If the sales are low one quarter the first thing CEOs do is cut costs\u2014the contact center is seen as a cost center, not a revenue generating arm of the business\u2014therefore cuts are often made to the contact center. Rather than take intelligent risks when a quarter is slow\u2014times when it would pay off to take a risk–executives start laying off employees, using technology to cut costs and keep customers at bay. It\u2019s precisely during these times that leaders need to think long-term.<\/p>\n

A long-term bet includes staffing your contact center appropriately so you can serve customers 24-7. Today\u2019s modern customers expect companies to respond at any time of day. In fact 32 percent of consumers expect a response within 30 minutes through social media channels. Not only that but 57 percent of consumers expect the same response time at night and on weekends as during normal business hours.\u00b2<\/p>\n

We are operating in a 24-7 world. Companies need to staff accordingly and plan that customers will ask for help outside of the company\u2019s local 9am to 5pm. Customer demand is steadily increasing while patience for incompetent customer experiences is steadily decreasing. By allocating the proper resources to your customer operation you will find your company in a better position to assist customers. By making things easier on the customer and a little harder on your company you will build long-lasting relationships with customers that will not just keep them coming back, but bringing their friends and family along as well.<\/p>\n

The Importance of Human Connections and Voice Contact <\/strong>
\nIt costs money to run a contact center, and a big part of that is staffing\u2014but proper staffing should not be seen as a cost, it should be seen as a lasting investment in the customer experience. With even the best self-service technology, customers should always be able to opt out of self-service and easily reach a person at your company. Are you guilty of rolling out phone tree software that leaves customers literally at the bottom of that \u201ctree\u201d? Imagine a customer shaking that tree waiting indefinitely for a person to emerge and help that customer. Here\u2019s the reason you need thoughtful people on the other side of the phone, and why relying purely on Facebook chatbots won\u2019t cut it. Not every customer has the same problem and there will be variation in your customer requests. A person, not a bot, is best suited to handle extreme variation in customer issues. Another valuable aspect of having staff run your contact center is the customer insights. The feedback received by the customer service representative could be highly valuable. The feedback can translate into improved products and services. For example perhaps the customer flagged an issue that would later cost the company millions of dollars. Your frontline people are the first to flag issues that could be the demise of the company. Or notified you about an unmet customer need that could make your company millions of dollars. Lastly, your customers are diverse and they have a diverse set of needs\u2014you need to provide a diverse option of channels for these customers to ensure you are meeting individual needs.<\/p>\n

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\u00b9 http:\/\/www.inc.com\/ilan-mochari\/innosight-sp-500-new-companies.html<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00b2 Baer, Jay. Hug Your Haters: How to Embrace Complaints and Keep Your Customers. New York: Portfolio\/Penguin, 2016. Web.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author: Blake Morgan Originally published on CMSwire.com When you go […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[509],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2936"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2936\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}