What’s Stopping You From Becoming a Connected Enterprise?

Ross Daniels at Calabrio outlines the obstacles and how to tackle them using three winning strategies for connecting staff and customers.

The secret to success lies in promoting a Connected Enterprise ethos that enables everyone, regardless of department, function or job role, to work together on cultivating better customer relationships.

By eliminating data silos and combining departmental forces, Connected Enterprises can enjoy far higher levels of workforce and customer engagement than their peers.

This blog reveals the most common barriers to becoming a Connected Enterprise and how to overcome them. We conclude by recommending three practical tips and techniques to guarantee a smooth transition to all-round connectedness.

Connectedness Is a State of Mind

Lack of confidence is one of the major barriers to becoming a Connected Enterprise. Some organisations simply do not believe they have the potential to drive positive change. Here are the most common concerns our customers share:

“We just don’t have the time, money or resources to join up our systems and become more connected” – at first glance, becoming a Connected Enterprise is just another task to add to a growing ‘to do’ list and an unnecessary extra cost.

This is where the Cloud comes into its own, at once simplifying and accelerating a state of connectedness without the need for new staff or expensive IT.

The latest cloud-based solutions seamlessly link all contact centre, CRM and critical business data to give a totally connected view of operations in real time. Moreover, they automatically boost scalability, making it possible to add new agents and features in an instant.

When looking for a BI solution, look for one that offers this kind of functionality: a VoC solution that can connect everything together and seamlessly pull in data from any source. For example, Calabrio Analytics customers can apply the new Enterprise CXI dashboards to get going.

“We are concerned about being exposed to reduced levels of security or the data protection dangers that commonly occur during any period of digital transformation” – with the Cloud, there is no disruption.

Cloud-based solutions are designed with inbuilt security features that protect the integrity of in-house and customer data while supporting compliance with important legislation such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Special permissions settings ensure the right people have access to only the functionality and data they need. What is more, when someone leaves the company, their data history is retained inside the organisation, while their privacy is protected on the outside.

3 Steps to Success

The most common customer concerns can be allayed; however, true self-confidence comes from within. So, what tips can Connected Enterprises share with their more hesitant peers? Here are 3 ways to encourage the right mindset:

• Lead from the top – the power to build confidence lies in the hands of business leaders, instilling a ‘can-do’ attitude that comes from a spirit of collaboration and shared learning. Aim to involve all parts of the organisation to establish what connectedness means for your brand and communicate the definition widely. Put together a practical plan outlining simple tactics that everyone can follow to translate the vision of your new Connected Enterprise into their everyday working lives.
• Recognise that Rome wasn’t built in a day – it’s a step-by-step process involving the whole organisation. After all, the journey to becoming a Connected Enterprise is a huge project. Define strategies and tactics in bite-size chunks and with realistic timelines. Gain executive buy-in but involve experts from different parts of the organisation, irrespective of title, to create a democratic, workable plan. Follow up with quick and effective ideas for continuous improvement that are flexible enough to accommodate changes in customer behaviour and the business.
• Maintain a flexible approach that grows with you and your customers with that final leap into the Cloud, if you haven’t already done so. A phased, cloud-based approach is often cheaper and smarter, making it easier to add new services that did not exist before and generate faster ROI. What is more, the Cloud offers practically unlimited computing power to transform data – the lifeblood of all Connected Enterprises – into valuable business insights that accelerate the shift to all-round connectedness.
  Finally, aim to work with technology partners who combine cloud-first thinking with flexible yet tightly integrated technology for maximum impact. Contact centre technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, AI, can be used to assess the sentiment in a customer’s voice and track their satisfaction during the buyer journey, or route customers to the correct agent.

Workforce Management (WFM) and Workforce Engagement Solutions (WEM) can help to track the performance of agents and keep teams engaged with leaderboards and gamification.

WEM solutions can unify call recording, quality management, workforce management, multichannel analytics and advanced reporting in a single easy-to-use platform for all-round IT connectivity and customer connectedness.