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Voice needs to be part of the digital CX - not the legacy annoyance
Contributed article by Stuart Dorman, Chief Innovation Officer, Sabio Group
When it comes to customer experience
transformation, the discussion tends to focus on faster and more efficient
digital channels. But unless brands fully integrate voice into customer
journeys, it’s hard to claim that they provide a fully joined-up customer
experience.
Despite the rush to digital, voice remains the most-used service channel –
particularly for complex issues. Advisors are seeing this first-hand, with 76%
of demand into an average contact centre coming via the voice channel. This
proved particularly the case during the early days of the pandemic when people clearly
needed re-assurance. And with businesses and stores largely closed, the contact
centre quickly became the new frontline for customer engagement.
When there’s uncertainty, a phone call is
the preferred option
The voice channel clearly matters more to customers when there’s uncertainty. In
this situation there is a real challenge for CX teams and advisors when to
deliver great service without having immediate access to the full customer
context.
Historically, organisations have been able
to link their Salesforce
or CRM system with telephony through a customer screen pop. However, this
is a very basic way of passing customer information to an advisor. That's a
very simple form of integration which has been around for decades although
still not widely deployed.
The good news is that with increased deployment of cloud-based digital
telephony and continuous innovations within the channel, it’s now possible to
track, measure and support all aspects of the voice call – from initial answer
through to wrap-up and beyond. Newer capabilities such as those within Salesforce
Service Cloud Voice provide the ability to create real-time transcriptions - so
that not only is metadata being passed into the desktop but rather real-time insights
on the conversation with automated knowledge and suggestions as well as the summarisation
of notes, saving time during and at the end of an interaction. This emerging
and evolving capability will help to truly digitise the voice channel.
And when we talk about voice becoming a
stand-alone digital channel, there’s two aspects to that. Firstly, and even
before the call is even answered, we’re able to greet the customer with a voicebot,
thus immediately digitising the interaction by allowing them to access
information or use the voice interface to solve an issue without the need to
speak with a human.
The second aspect is, all of a sudden, all
of that unstructured data in the voice conversation is being digitised and
therefore allows us to do something more meaningful with it wherever we are able
to surface our insights. This allows us to draw meaning from that data to help
either the customer or an advisor solve a problem or answer a question quicker
and easier.
So, if organisations are to deliver a
high-quality customer experience at scale – and one that’s consistent across
both digital and physical engagement channels – then they will need to be able
to integrate enterprise voice telephony into their core CRM platform.
It’s time to place voice at the heart of
the CRM Customer Engagement Centre
At Sabio, and via our recently acquired specialist CRM practice, ‘makepositive’, we’re now working with
Salesforce to help our clients to place voice at the heart of their CRM
Customer Engagement Centre. With the introduction of solutions such as Service
Cloud Voice, it’s now possible for Salesforce CRM users to take advantage of
the power of telephony platforms such as Avaya, Genesys, Google and others
across their end-to-end CRM experience.
By working with you to provide ‘Bring Your Own Telephony’ support for Service
Cloud Voice, your voice platform is no longer a separate service channel. For
example, Service Cloud Voice leverages the power of Salesforce Customer 360’s
Service Console, Einstein Next Best Action and Analytics capabilities to give
advisors the opportunity to deliver true omnichannel support and resolve calls
faster.
Bringing the power of AI to phone calls not
only helps to reduce average handling times, but also helps advisors to remove
customer frustration by having the voice channel running seamlessly alongside
web and social channels. And, because calls are transcribed in real-time,
there’s no need for advisors to take notes. Automated call wrap-ups also give
advisors the space they need to focus on the customer.
Integrating cloud telephony and CRM provides advisors with a toolset to enable
them to do their best work. Sabio’s combination of deep contact centre
expertise and Salesforce consulting skills means that we can take care of all
the telephony integration and set-up, leaving your CX team free to focus on the
advisor and customer experience.
For organisations determined to create a wholly digital customer experience,
it’s probably fair to say that the telephony channel always used to be seen as
somewhat of a legacy annoyance. Now with solutions such as Service Cloud Voice
that’s no longer the case with voice becoming a digital channel.
Download Sabio’s Service
Cloud Voice flyer to learn more about how you can extend the power of your
CRM with native digital telephony.
About Sabio Group
Sabio
Group is a global digital customer experience (CX) transformation
specialist with major operations in the UK (England and Scotland), Spain,
France, Netherlands, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa and India.
The Group, which includes ‘makepositive’,
delivers solutions and services that seamlessly combine digital and human
interactions to support outstanding customer experiences.
Through its own technology, and that of
world-class technology leaders such as Amazon Connect, Avaya, Genesys, Google
Cloud, Salesforce, Twilio and Verint, Sabio helps organisations optimise their
customer journeys by making better decisions across their multiple contact
channels.
The Group works with major brands
worldwide, including Aegon, AXA Assistance, BBVA, BGL, Caixabank, DHL, loveholidays,
Marks & Spencer, Rentokil, Essent, GovTech, HomeServe, Saga, Sainsbury’s
Argos, Telefónica and Transcom Worldwide.
www.sabiogroup.com
twitter.com/sabiosense
https://linkedin.com/company/sabio
MEDIA CONTACT:
Joe O’Brien
Corporate Communications and PR Manager
Sabio Group
+44 (0) 7825 170269
joe.obrien@sabiogroup.com