Greater visibility needed across multiple channels

Only 15% of contact centre agents are easily able to track customers across multiple channels.

And almost half are required to use as many as 15 different systems to do their job, according to the joint research report between Cisco and the Customer Contact Association (CCA).

Based on a survey of 82 senior decision-makers at CCA member organisations, the research also revealed that the board is absent from the contact centre in a third of cases. This lack of visibility is leaving managers struggling to demonstrate the strategic importance of their contact centre to the business, making it difficult to justify investment.

The report shows that the majority of agents (90%) understand the importance of attaining a single view of the customer, and 98% believe appropriate technical solutions already exist to enable this. However, with 72% complaining that legacy systems are the main barrier to achieving this view, it’s clear that securing sign-off on a system upgrade is a challenge facing many contact centres.

“Maintaining a single view of the customer across multiple channels is vital if contact centres are to make customers feel valued,” said Brian Atkinson, Head of Customer Collaboration Sales at Cisco UK&I. “Without this unified view, customers are forced to provide the same information to different agents that have no record of their previous interactions. Not only does this harm the customer experience, it’s hugely inefficient from the perspective of the contact centre.”