Omnichannel for BPOs: the way to improve customer service
Over the years, the ability of users to interact with new technologies has rapidly increased. Digital channels, in all their forms, are being used with increasing confidence by people for personal and recreational purposes, but also to communicate with friends and family. The increasing ability of users to interact with all digital tools cannot be underestimated by companies, which must move on those same channels and be active exactly as the user expects.
This is where Omnichannel and BPO come in, the essential resources to avoid losing potential consumers due to too high a flow of requests on multiple fronts. The strategy between Brand and BPO will require the right tools, technologies and a long-term action plan, enabling the company to be present at the time and in the medium where the customer expects to find it.
Omnichannel in BPO
A contact centre provides companies with staff trained to respond to all user enquiries, across a multitude of channels. In the digital age, these channels have grown by leaps and bounds and the urgency to cover them in their entirety has become more pressing (and difficult).
Consumers today expect companies to be efficient in every place where contact takes place: from phone calls to emails, from chats to social media, and managing this epochal shift in the best possible way means understanding it in its entirety and complexity of elements. Contact Centres that are able to develop an Omnichannel strategy are those that are able to respond to the user in the best way.
Is Omnichannel the same as Multichannel?
No, it is not: ‘multi’ means ‘many’, ‘omni’ means … ‘all’. The key to understanding the difference between the two is precisely how user support is managed.
A multichannel system in a contact centre uses various means such as social networks, email, text messaging, chat and voice, trying to maximise the results on the individual platforms.
An Omnichannel customer service, on the other hand, aims to deliver a valuable customer experience, no matter which channel. The basic difference lies in the consistency one wants to demonstrate.
In his navigation towards the company, the user encounters different touchpoints that serve to create a connection between him and the brand. It is like when in real life we convince someone enough of our corporate value to end the conversation with a nice handshake. In the moments preceding this gesture, the potential consumer has got to know the Brand’s tone of voice, its style and the image it conveyed, and has decided to connect with it.
In the digital world, the same thing happens, only on more channels. To best respond to that virtual handshake and remain consistent with the identity we have presented so far, the company must therefore have an integrated strategy across all the channels that the user uses to contact it.
The Contact Centre and the BPO, which have transformed ‘Multi’ into ‘Omni’, are well suited to this great objective.
The 3 Steps to Omnichannel
The difference of the omnichannel approach is especially important in the long run. Because it allows a complete and uniform view of all strategies that are implemented.
The contact centre that uses an integrated strategy across all channels can develop a coherent plan of action and guarantee better results. Especially in the eyes of the consumer.
1- Improving the efficiency and quality of contacts
At the end of the day, what the consumer wants is a consistent experience. This means that brands must not only be reachable on all available devices, but must also speak ‘the same language’. Consumers may contact brands using social networks and then send an email to make sure their question has arrived. In these cases, the contact centre must be able to trace the threads of all previous conversations.
With the right software, all of these conversations can be integrated into a single ‘profile’, saving not inconsiderable time for the Operator. By implementing this solution in the best possible way, we will gain many benefits:
- Optimise the transition from one platform to another: all enquiries arriving through one channel may not necessarily be resolved using the same channel, e.g. a complex question posed via email may be better handled over the phone. With Omnichannel this transition is easier.
- Integrating front and back office: the people who interact directly with consumers and the others who manage marketing and logistics functions can in this way be connected.
- Getting the connection points with the user in order: the customer experience must be problem-free. A good idea to understand where these problems exist and how they can be solved could be to start a service questionnaire and use the results to formulate solutions and eliminate the sticking points in our relationship.
2- People and management
To successfully implement an omnichannel strategy, Contact Centre Operators will need to have the right skills. Besides being able to work on suitable software, they must also be able to think critically and adapt to different scenarios quickly. The ability to personalise a conversation with the consumer is also important in order to fully respect the tone of voice of the brand regardless of which channel is being used in that specific case. By personalising the conversation it is also possible to open up to different commercial scenarios, through BigProfiles AI Platform it is possible to identify the propensity to purchase of each incoming contact, so as to implement the most suitable strategy in handling it.
3- Technology and tools
Developing an omnichannel strategy means responding to customer needs wherever they are, but above all it represents a unique opportunity to collect data, which will be essential for creating future strategies and improving existing processes.
A recent report by Aberdeen Group reported that companies that applied omnichannel strategies were able to increase annual revenue and consumer engagement by 9.5 per cent, with excellent results on customer loyalty.
Customer service excellence
The BPO that learns how to make the most of this omnichannel resource has a very high competitive advantage. Once the strategies are in place, the technology is up-to-date and the staff is trained, it will be easy to add other channels as the company grows, as the whole process will already be optimised and projected into the future.
Modern technologies, such as CRMs and Artificial Intelligence, make it possible to use software that easily keeps track of the data and threads of every single user we come into contact with. This will help in many ways: collecting data and changing strategies, prioritising users and issues, and being there for the customer as quickly and efficiently as possible. BigProfiles AI Platform is the first predictive platform created for Telemarketing and Teleselling, which can help you enrich your CRM data and predict in real time the buying propensity of each incoming contact.
Thanks to a software that facilitates work processes, we can change our approach to daily tasks: without wasting time searching for contacts, previous threads and figuring out by ourselves how much to invest and on whom, we can really focus on offering a quality service through each channel, bringing home more results in terms of customer service to sales.