To deliver a superior customer experience, call agents need to have the capability to resolve issues and makes decisions quickly during a voice call or through chat and email. To accomplish that, a CRM system needs cloud communications.
Customers now expect quicker response times and more informed conversations with call agents. They expect issues to be resolved, transactions to be processed and accounts to be set up in just one call, not over several. Meeting these expectations is key to addressing top customer relationship management priorities — reducing churn, improving customer satisfaction and gaining more value from customers.
Making CRM systems work harder
Real-time analytics ensures that a support or sales team are equipped with up-to-the-minute information about the customer, that supervisors can instantly assess performance, and that a company can continue to increase customer satisfaction. But the depth of analytics functionality currently offered by CRM systems is not capable of delivering the level of information and insight required to empower a truly exceptional customer experience — unless it is partnered with a cloud communications platform.
Integrating a CRM system with a cloud communications platform significantly enhances the real-time analytics and reporting capacity of the tool by adding a number of additional features and functionality:
1. Identify customers and their needs in advance
Smart cloud communication software solutions can not only identify the incoming customer through call ID look up and voice verification, they can also identify the customer’s specific need in advance of the agent taking a call. For example, an account or ticket number can identified using an interactive voice response capability at the front of the agent queue. This detail can be fired into the CRM system and will pop up once the agent is available to pick up the call. This solution leads to highly effective communications and high levels of customer satisfaction.
2. Word and phrase searching
While hosting a call or meeting, an agent can quickly analyze past archived calls with the account/customer by simply searching for specific words or phrases. They can search and retrieve any archived call or video customer interaction within seconds and run ‘cradle to grave’ analysis of any call into or out of the business. Extracts of customer interactions can be provided immediately.
The ability to access and retrieve such information in real time can help settle disputes and manage any issues with existing customers faster, and to have a more informed conversation with both potential prospects and current customers — all core ingredients to ensuring customer satisfaction
3. Supervisor listen, whisper and barge
With call whisper, listen and barge, managers or supervisors can discreetly enter a customer call, creating a three-way call environment where both the agent and the caller can hear and speak directly to the supervisor. The supervisor can use this feature to speak directly to a lead/customer without the agent hearing. Listen-only mode allows supervisors to follow, manage and analyze an agent’s performance in real-time — an especially valuable tool to help evaluate the performance of new and junior level recruits.
4. Identify lengthy call waiting periods
Cloud communications solutions provide live wall boards that capture all the real-time action in agent queues. Management can quickly identify if waiting periods are below satisfactory levels and immediately allocate additional resources during these peak periods, minimizing drop-offs in customer satisfaction, reducing call abandonments, heightening dispute resolution and maximising the potential to win new business.
5. Real-time performance reporting
The ability to analyze agent performance in real time offers visibility into essential data for strategic business planning and growth. Management teams are capable of easily managing, filtering and analyzing data into immediately actionable insights that directly contribute to speedier business growth and accelerated agent performance. Senior management can quickly identify call agents who are falling behind, not meeting sales targets or quotas or customer satisfaction levels and remedy the issues. Equally, management team can quickly identify the “rock star” call agents and immediately move them to managing the most high value calls.
Another significant benefit of cloud communications is the innate mobility that such solutions offer. No matter what device or platform an agent is using to communicate with a customer or lead, no matter where they are located, the real-time analytics capability of cloud communications is immediately available. They can source the data they need to maximize call experience and outbound campaign results anywhere, anytime, and on any device.
Real-time analytics = real-time performance acceleration
The real-time analytics functionality offered by integrating a CRM system with cloud communications benefits every member of a call center command chain from junior agent to senior managers. Call agents and sales teams are better equipped with the insights to deliver a superior customer experience. Management teams can obtain the most up-to-date performance insights and customer data to better manage teams, improve internal processes, and make important business decisions much faster.
Case studies: customer experience management
Making customer calls productive and painless
