Customers want to conduct interactions on their own terms

For organisations keen to prioritise their customer service technology priorities, Paul White, CEO of mplsystems, has identified what he believes should be the key areas of focus for 2013.

Widespread deployment of mobile apps

While customers increasingly appreciate the immediacy and control that mobile apps can deliver, they also want the certainty that comes from knowing their issues are being resolved. The most successful mobile apps will be those that integrate 100% with existing contact centre queues and processes.

Increased focus on self-service channels

Traditional voice channels are still by far the most dominant UK contact channel, but there’s a growing preference for more effective self-service. Customers don’t want to be kept waiting, so self-service channels that can bypass frustrating IVR and call centre queues will become increasingly popular.

Web chat and Instant Messaging starts delivering

Web chat will see increased take-up during 2013, particularly with enhancements such as multi-way chat and growing customer participation in self-service forums via “communities of interest”.

Cloud contact centres go mainstream

There’s a growing maturity about the contact centre as a service market, with Gartner recently identifying cloud-based contact centre platforms as an alternative to traditional on-premises-based infrastructure deployments.

Initiatives such as the Government’s G-Cloud programme will also drive public sector adoption. Significantly, Gartner suggested that it was application specialists that offer the broadest set of capabilities, particularly for deployment scenarios such as infrastructure refresh, or the addition of new channels to the customer communications mix.

Social media gets rescued from Marketing

Despite massive growth in social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter, it’s probably still a bit too early to hope that social media will be rescued from the Marketing Department and transferred to the customer service contact centre where it rightfully belongs.

Optimising your existing technology investments

Next year will see organisations actively looking to unlock further value from their existing technology infrastructure rather than opting for a more aggressive refresh approach.

Deploying universal desktop solutions that integrate existing systems and applications with new functionality such as mobile apps, web chat and social integration can deliver significant added value.

Recognising and responding to customer preferences

Amongst all the mobile apps, social and web chat initiatives, it’s important not to forget that a significant proportion of the customer demographic is unlikely to want to engage in this part of the customer service journey.

Acknowledging the value of these customers, and ensuring that you still have agents available to answer and address their requirements, will still be of real importance during 2013 and beyond.

Getting the customer contact balance right

2013 will see smarter organisations leveraging their mix of customer service technologies to achieve the right balance between simply servicing a customer account, and actively engaging to handle more complex issues.

We expect to see more routine interactions such as orders, balance inquiries or FAQ matters handled by customer service apps, web chat and self-service, while issues that need resolution, such as complaints, returns or fraud concerns, will be dealt with by live agent interactions. Organisations will need to make sure their service operations are ready and able to address this distinction.

“With smartphone usage growing dramatically, we’re expecting mobile to increasingly become a primary contact channel – driving the requirement for a new generation of innovative, next generation self-service apps,” comments Paul White, CEO mplsystems.

“Today’s customers clearly don’t like to be kept waiting, so we think it will become imperative for customer service organisations to deploy technologies that will allow customers to conduct interactions on their own terms. However, this will only be successful if all these interactions are serviced as part of a single, integrated customer service queue.”