Tag: omnichannel support

Ep. 17 The Impact of Omnichannel Support on Contact Center Agents

Posted on by Blake Graves

Contact Center Agents Enjoy Omnichannel Support Delivery

This episode features Tone Holmen, General Manager, and Senior Vice President Operations of Retail & Residential Services. Tone has been with iQor for 21 years, starting as a contact center supervisor. Her career has advanced admirably, and today she oversees global operations for several lines of business, including Retail and Residential Service lines across our centers in Canada, Panama, the Philippines, India and the U.S. We discussed the impact on contact center agents when delivering support via the omnichannel method.

Omnichannel support is support that is delivered through various channels for customers who contact a company. Examples can include chat, email, SMS, interactive-voice, and voice (live phone conversations). Omnichannel allows the end customer to choose how they interact with a brand which helps to improve customer satisfaction.

The variety of mediums to choose from offers consumers flexibility when it comes to doing business with a company, and consumers appreciate that. In fact, consumers have come to expect omnichannel options when interacting with a brand, with seventy-two percent preferring options in how they engage for support. In the omnichannel approach, a consumer could initiate a question through chat, followed by email, culminating in a phone conversation, all of which is integrated within a customer management solution (CMS), resulting in a positive customer experience.

The Impact of Omnichannel on Contact Center Agents

The variety associated with delivering omnichannel support can be very appealing to an agent. Voice-centric call center work can be repetitive. When agents handle customer engagement across different channels, the variety can be fulfilling. In many instances, non-voice channels allow agents to send links to helpful articles, making it easier to provide support, which is not always an option in voice call support. Agents who deliver omnichannel support enhance their oral and written skillsets, which can positively impact their careers.

Training Agents for Omnichannel Support

The skills needed for omnichannel support include being tech-savvy and interacting with customers on different digital channels comfortably. Additionally, writing skills are needed for effective communication with customers. For nearshore and offshore agents, omnichannel requires a higher-level mastery of English.

Training omnichannel agents can be the same, shorter, or longer than a voice-only support program. Since delivering omnichannel support can be more entertaining because agents are eager to use cool tools, the training can be more enjoyable.

Omnichannel can be fun for agents because it can lend itself to different types of customer problem solving, making it more attractive for the contact center agent.

Omnichannel Support is Growing

Omnichannel support is growing rapidly. Ten years ago, all support was voice-centric. In those days, agents were known as call center agents.

Currently, simple transactions such as obtaining the shipping status of an order is a self-service activity that customers prefer to do using a company’s digital channels. The consumer doesn’t have to wait on hold to speak to an agent for such simple transactions.

The omnichannel support job is more complex. When consumers have attempted to solve their issue through non-voice channels before making a phone call, they expect the agent to be empowered with the history of the conversation at her fingertips.

When the tools are intelligent, providing the agent visibility into the customer’s previous interactions, the agent can pick it up from there and give the customer a satisfactory resolution. However, if the tools don’t cross-communicate to the agent, the customer gets frustrated. In those instances where the tools don’t talk to each other, omnichannel support does not actually exist. Instead, this is known as multi-channel support.

These multiple channels can be a convenience for the consumer and a source of pain when siloed, especially when the brand cannot integrate the consumer’s touchpoints to enable a smooth phone conversation with an agent.  

Tone shared one of many omnichannel support success stories. An iQor agent in Trinidad and Tobago went out of her way to resolve an issue with a customer who engaged her through chat. The customer had purchased a gift for a child’s birthday. The shipping link indicated that the gift was delivered, but it had not arrived. The agent worked quickly with the seller, arranged to get the gift re-ordered at no cost to the customer, and even arranged for the gift to ship overnight. The customer received it the next day in time for the child’s birthday.

It’s common for omnichannel conversations to deal with emotional activity in a consumer’s life, such as gifts, reservations, or flights. In those cases, the consumer is looking to the agent to help solve a problem with personal consequences.

Tone Enjoys the Outdoors for Fun

Tone is a fan of college football, though, in pandemic times, she is not attending games. Now, outdoor activities have become a significant source of fun. She spends time doing outdoor yoga, notably in a women’s yoga club, and is active in a local running club.

Learn more about iQor digital customer experience capabilities.

Ep. 16 How to Create Remarkable Experiences Customers Want to Share

Posted on by Bernie Borges

At the Intersection of Customer Experience and Marketing

Dan Gingiss is an accomplished marketer. His career marketing experience includes roles at Discover Card, McDonald’s, and Humana. The common thread among those experiences for Dan is learning that when an experience is remarkable, a customer tells others about the experience with enthusiasm, which is the holy grail of marketing. Dan’s book, The Experience Maker – How to Create Remarkable Experiences That Your Customers Can’t Wait to Share explains how to achieve this through his WISE method, which is what this episode is all about.

A Lesson in Customer Experience from Delivering Pizza to Michael Jordan

Dan tells the story that, when he was in high school, he delivered pizza for Dominos in the Chicago area. One day, he was sent to deliver pizza to one of America’s most well-known professional basketball players, Michael Jordan. Dan was super excited and contemplated how he’d ask for an autograph. But Dan was warned – his fellow delivery drivers told him that he’d have to choose. Dan could ask Michael Jordan for an autograph, which he would receive, but not a tip. On the other hand, Dan could forgo asking for an autograph, and in that case, the basketball star would reward this choice with a generous tip.

When Michael Jordan answered the door himself, he was busy looking around, seemingly concerned about the paparazzi. Dan decided in the moment that he would respect Jordan’s privacy and NOT ask for an autograph. That was a good decision. Dan received a good tip, but more importantly, he learned a lesson in understanding a customer’s need in the moment to deliver a great customer experience.

Marketing and Customer Experience Go Together

Dan draws on his corporate marketing experience. He views himself as being at the intersection of customer experience and marketing. He says that good marketing is the promise made to the customer about the experience they can expect when they do business with us. It communicates how the customer will feel when they buy our products or services. Marketing campaigns are often the first experience a consumer has with a brand. He says that the customer experience has already begun even before the customer has become a customer. 

The WISE Method

Chapter four is titled “Becoming WISE.” This acronym stands for: Witty, Immersive, Shareable, and Extraordinary. Dan points out that a remarkable customer experience doesn’t require each of these elements. His book describes each one with many examples. Let’s dive into each.

Witty. It simply means being clever or using language in a clever way. It doesn’t require a brand to be funny. It means, don’t be boring. Each communication channel is an opportunity to create an experience by showing the brand’s personality. One example from the book is a magazine issued by the State of Nebraska. In one issue, the cover image showed a family rowing down a river in a metal tub. That itself is eye-catching. The tagline is what hooked Dan. It read: It’s not for everyone. This tagline is witty and attention-grabbing because it inspires the reader to want to know more.

Immersive. An immersive experience gets customers to have an emotional reaction to an experience. An example from the book is a bar in Louisville, KY, that serves a drink called the Old Fashion Experience. It’s a glass with an ice cube containing the ingredients of the Old Fashion, but the key difference here is that the ingredients are frozen into an ice cube. The drink is served with a side of whiskey. The idea is that you pour the whiskey over the ice ball, and as the ice melts, the drink formulates in front of you, creating an immersive experience.

Shareable. Customers generally don’t share an experience if you ask them to. But, when a brand creates an experience with a remarkable moment worth sharing, that’s when it happens. The example from the book Dan shares is a liquor tasting event with a pop-up tent and an elaborate garnish bar with many toppings. After the customer creates their drink with the toppings of their choice, the company provides a card and a clip so customers can name their concoction. Without asking, people often take a selfie picture of that moment with their specially-named cocktail.

Extraordinary. This just means being a little bit better than ordinary, or as Dan says, being more than “meh.” The example from the book he shares is a hotel experience. Pre COVID, he was on a business trip, and he awoke in the middle of the night in his hotel room to use the bathroom. When his feet touched the floor, a motion-activated light illuminated his path to the bathroom. Dan was more than impressed with the usefulness of this treatment when upon further inspection, he learned that the illumination is created with a simple and inexpensive stick-on light. This extraordinary experience was a game-changer for Dan’s experience at this travel and hospitality brand.

Responsive. Dan points out that once you learn the WISE method, it’s important to become WISER. That’s where the R comes in — it stands for responsive. When a customer has an experience they share with others on social media, brands should be responsive. Customers want to have a relationship with brands. They want you to acknowledge and respond to them when you post about their experience. Being responsive doesn’t just show appreciation, it has the potential to convert a brand detractor into a brand advocate.

Dan’s book is easy to read, inspiring, and I would even suggest a bit entertaining. You can get your copy of The Experience Maker at DanGingiss.com.

Learn more about iQor digital customer experience capabilities.