In the contact centre industry, research is a key step for any new venture including launching a new product / service or starting to export to a new market. Recently, our Chief Executive Pat Keogh attended the Contact Center Week in Las Vegas with the aim of introducing our contact center to the States and learn about American organizations looking to export to Europe. It was the perfect setting to network with industry peers and learn about trends in the contact center. In this blog, we debrief this experience and highlight what’s new in the USA customer contact sector.
A sneak peek in the #CCWVegas19
The #CCWVegas19 took place on the 24th to the 28th of June. The main conference was held over two days (27th and 28th of June), the organizers had a full week of planned events related to the contact center industry including site tours, workshops and discussion panels.
Arema Connect is a member of the Crios Group, an Irish BPO Cluster initiative supported by Enterprise Ireland. We took stand 530 at the event to promote our business. Additionally, our Chief Executive had the opportunity to network with peers and suppliers and compare our own contact center key activities with the best industry practice. So, what happened in Las Vegas?
The CCWVegas19 was well worth the visit. The atmosphere, the hotel, and overall event provided the perfect setting for our research.
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Debriefing #CCWVegas19: The status of customer support trend in our contact center
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence in the contact center industry is being incorporated into on the daily activities of all call centres. By automatizing solutions, customers we can get faster metrics in order to deliver a higher standard of service to our clients. For example, the use of chatbots is becoming the first step for webchat and online interactions. It enables customers to get information based on content analysis and chatbots learn from each interaction.
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BPO and Outsourcing Services
Business Process Outsourcing is a growing industry and partnering with a professional BPOs enables them to benefit from expert advice while focusing on their core activities
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
The number of CRM software providers is expanding and the solutions available to automate more daily tasks is allowing the BPO sector to reduce costs. As more and more channels are being included, new features are also developed to make reporting easier.
Providers of CRM Solutions in the #CCWVegas19 include: Authority Software, Cloud Call Center Search, Freshworks, JourneyTEAM, LiveVox, Microsoft, Oracle, ResponseTap, Ricochet360, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Sperse, Vonage and Zoho
- Analytical CRM: It analyses the information derived by customers and highlights the main characteristics which are useful for contributing to the company’s objectives.
- Operational CRM: deals with automation, improvement and enhancement of business processes.
- Collaborative CRM: it works with the information a company has about its customers. It shares this knowledge among all the departments involved with them.
Mapping your customer journey:
Customer journey mapping & its benefits
1. Helps us to understand our customers
2. Identifying inefficiencies during the Customer Journey
3. By working on the Customer Journey Map together, it ensures that the individuals most capable of solving customers’ problems will be on the same page about what these problems are and the best approach to fixing them.
How to Use a Customer Journey Plan to Identify Your Contact Center News?
First, Customer Journey Plan Template or use one from the internet. It doesn’t need to be fancy initially, as you will probably need more than one iteration through the process. Key elements to include are: persona, journey, channels and information needs.
Download Customer Journey Plan Template
Customer Journey Mapping
Journey Mapping, in a nutshell, captures the journey from the perspective of the customer. The complexity of this is increasing as newer customer interaction channels are provided to customers and buyers. Long gone are these days where customers only had the option of face-to-face customer interaction or phone calls. Nowadays, a journey map must consider apps, webchat, email, and much more. An interesting workshop was provided by Brian Cantor where he provided key highlights from the CCW Digital special report, interviewed a practitioner on their experience mapping journeys, and then dives into an interactive journey mapping activity for immersion in the process.
Related vendor-list of customer journey mapping included 8×8, Acqueon, AltSource, Cisco, CSG, Genesys, LiveVox, ResponseTap, TTEC and Twilio. While we are not specialist in this area, using data evidence through real reports we can contribute to the identification of customer pains and point of contacts preferences for clients that outsource their customer experience to our contact center.
OFFShoring
In the case of American companies exporting to Europe, the case for outsourcing to Ireland is compelling. As we know the culture, English is our first language and we have access to a multi-lingual workforce.
Representatives of the Crios Group, a cluster of Irish BPO’s, including our Chief Executive was present in the #CCWVegas19 to showcase the contact center industry in Ireland.
Social Media Customer Support
Social Media Management
Social Media is becoming a must-have for companies that want to improve customer satisfaction. Using systems that help to identify not just trends but also establish real-time conversations to solve problems provides a competitive edge to all business departments in small and large organizations.
CCWVegas19 sponsors in social media management included Alta Resources, Interactions, RingCentral, TaskUs, Tetherfi and World Connection. We have been providing social media customer support since 2010 for retail companies. We collaborate with marketing departments and focus on answering questions and addressing any issues outlined by clients online.
