Today’s Modern Consumer
Today’s consumers are on-the-go, socially savvy and more sophisticated than they were ten years ago. Many are impatient, and they value crowdsourcing when making buying decisions. They treasure the ability to self-publish to make sure their voice is heard. Make no mistake, they will telegraph both bad or good experiences with your brand. Increasingly, today’s consumer is more loyal if they are allowed to interact with your enterprise on their terms: with self-service, or live service, or a combination of the two.
Yesterday’s Multi-Channel Approach
Multi-channel service options are commonplace today (chat, email, voice, sms, social). But unfortunately, these channels do not necessarily behave as a cohesive whole. Consumers want to traverse from one interaction type to another seamlessly. And just as important, they want their inquiry and inputs to flow throughout their journey. If the context of their journey does not flow regardless of channel, the consumer is not happy. Any interruption in the customer journey leads to frustration and potential churn.
Interplay Between Consumer, AI, Workflow and Agents
Frustration and churn do not have to be the norm. One critical defense is to arm your agents with the best tools to serve customers. And to do this, you need a solution that has AI built-in to the workflow. AI can be used to tease out relevant data, understand customer sentiment, and help with real time decisions. Not only does AI help consumers get to their demands better, but it frames the discussion for the agent in a superior way.
Bringing it All Together
Let’s face it – no one likes to repeat to a live agent what they’ve already told to a bot or IVR system. We can all agree that “Context is King;” however, if you pass a customer to the wrong agent, things can go sideways fast. It is essential when escalating from automation to live – that the consumer ends up with a person who has the correct skills to handle to inquiry. All of this – the preferred channel, the seamless transitions, the hand-off of context, and finally the correct agent – is the lifeblood of journey orchestration. AI serves as the brains of that orchestration so a truly modern omnichannel experience will delight your customers.