Too many organisations underestimate the power of voice and yet it continues to be the building block of an effective omnichannel customer engagement strategy. Kris McKenzie at Calabrio suggests the secret to success lies in blending voice, and its unfiltered insights, with your CRM to build better customer journeys.

In Calabrio’s recent blog “Harnessing CCaaS and CRM solutions: what’s the missing link?”, we discovered how data is the beating heart of a synchronised agent and user experience, empowering frontline staff to deliver better customer experiences. We then explored the importance of capturing all kinds of information from inside and outside the contact centre - to create a “single pane of glass” where complete customer journeys are reflected, from the channels used, to previous purchases and past conversations.

Voice is the common denominator
If today’s news articles and social media are to be believed, achieving this “single pane of glass” in the new era of Customer Experience Intelligence (CXI) depends on a successful digital transformation that embraces the latest ‘must-haves’ such as Artificial Intelligence (AI). However, organisations should not forget the role of voice calls to complete CXI data and to truly understand customer touchpoints. This begins by integrating voice with customer centric platforms such as customer relationship management (CRM).

3 reasons why voice matters for holistic customer journey mapping

• The trinity of integrated players for customer experience – modern cloud contact centres have mixed infrastructures including Contact Centre-as-a-Service (CCaaS) technology and typically a CRM product, however, both lack the capabilities necessary to fully map customer journeys.

CRM specialists, while able to support modern omnichannel interactions, require access to voice and contact centre know-how to release the valuable intelligence that emanates from millions of customer calls, emails, texts, Tweets and Chat conversations happening in customer service interactions.

Combined CCaaS and CRM solutions are not able to deliver omnichannel customer service infrastructure as well as entirely understand the customer at each and every touchpoint. This is especially true at enterprise-level scale or complexity, however, there is a link missing to harness the full customer journey.
The perfect combination for customer experience (CX) is the best there is, and the trinity comes in the form of cloud-based contact centre (CCaaS) and customer relationship management (CRM) with integrated workforce engagement management (WEM) tools and analytics connecting the two. Solutions like Calabrio ONE fit neatly between CCaaS and CRM solutions for workforce planning, workforce engagement and customer journey analytics, including all important voice calls.

• Give digital touchpoints the right and real context - there are a myriad of solutions that claim to capture complete customer journeys. In reality, the majority centre around the digital aspects of customer journeys whether that’s on a website, chat, social media or via an app and for most, the missing link is voice.

Take the example of a customer who wants to order a gift for their mother’s birthday. After adding the chosen item to their online basket, they realise they need more details about sizing or next-day delivery that they can’t find on the website so they use their mobile device to call the contact centre before checking out. The problem with the majority of solutions is they are likely to portray a linear digital customer journey, thereby totally missing the vital voice connection when the customer called the contact centre - the critical make-or-break factor in the deal!

Integrating voice with your CRM system makes it possible to connect every aspect of a customer’s journey with the brand, providing a complete view of all customer touchpoints, whatever the channel.

• Aim high, be a Connected Enterprise – building and mapping better customer journeys by tightly integrating voice with CRM benefits not just customer service teams but an entire organisation. Many businesses spend valuable time and resources searching for answers that are right in front of them. The contact centre is at the heart of building the customer experience and understanding it. Connected enterprises need to look at how they can put the contact centre, and thus the unfiltered voice of the customer (VoC), as their central hub of intelligence about variables and processes related to CX.

The point of nirvana here comes with truly dynamic, near-real-time AI-based Business Intelligence systems that help all functions be better, from enabling marketing to understand campaign success and brand presence to finance understanding billing issues, refunds and credits, based on what all customers and agents are saying, as well as what they’re doing. Modern enterprises can use out-of-the-box, function-specific dashboards, such as those in Calabrio Enterprise CXI, designed to amplify speech analytics data captured in the contact centre to provide actionable insights to keep the entire organisation one step ahead.

While the bid to be omnichannel may leave many focused on the digital footprint of customers, it’s time to elevate voice to the place it deserves, firmly at the front-end of contact centre processes and the centre of CX. For more ideas and inspiration on how to build better customer journeys or to learn about Connected Enterprises, visit www.calabrio.com

Kris McKenzie is Senior Vice President International at Calabrio

About Calabrio
Calabrio is the customer experience intelligence company that empowers organisations to enrich human interactions. The scalability of our cloud platform allows for quick deployment of remote work models—and it gives our customers precise control over both operating costs and customer satisfaction levels. Our AI-driven analytics tools make it easy for contact centres to uncover customer sentiment and share compelling insights with other parts of the organisation. Customers choose Calabrio because we understand their needs and provide a best-in-class experience, from implementation to ongoing support. Find more at calabrio.com and follow @Calabrio on Twitter.
Calabrio, Calabrio ONE and the Calabrio logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Calabrio, Inc. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.

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