Aviad Abiri of NICE examines how service organizations will need to incorporate agility in their functioning to succeed in a constantly changing world.
Striking a balance between efficiency and customer experience has been a staple of good contact center strategy. Recent global trends and changing cultural shifts are going to require contact centres to add a third critical element to succeed in a dynamically changing world: extreme digital CX agility. To integrate this new parameter into their overall CX strategies, contact centres must incorporate three critical capabilities within their business.
First, we believe that 2021 will continue to drive overwhelming consumer adoption of Digital Channels. Younger generations, like Gen Y and Gen Z, have already embraced Digital channels as their preferred methods of communications. But recent social distancing has contributed to much wider adoption of Digital as the channel of choice across ALL generations, a trend that directly affects Contact Centers and how people prefer to interact for Service.
Contact centres will need to embrace an agile digital service model, one which allows seamless integration of voice and digital channels, supporting multiple digital service options, self-help and chatbots, and easily adding new digital channels as they become popular. What this means for Contact Centers is establishing a strong and stable – yet flexible – foundation. One that will enable them to not only respond to extreme changes in real-time and with zero disruption, but also ensure they are able to stay one step ahead, regardless of the situation around them. It is about ensuring fast time-to-innovate, so that service organizations can stay one step ahead of consumer expectations.
Another 2021 trend is the continued practice of Work From Home (WFH), or combination of both Office and WFM work simultaneously. A predictable and clearly segmented workforce is a thing of the past. In the coming years, contact centres must dynamically manage agents, whether they are working remotely or in the office, off-shore or on-shore, in-house or outsourced, and across multiple channels. In addition, a robotic workforce must also be managed together with human agents, as one integrated workforce. This is what we call an agile digital workforce. Contact centers must have a fully agile workforce with the ability to move across channels and workplaces without losing efficiency.
Finally, a direct result of a workforce that is always no longer in one physical location, is the need for Visibility. To truly be agile, contact centres must be empowered with real-time digital insights driven by advance Analytics and Artificial Intelligence. These insights can provide better information on what Contact Center employees are doing and allow better guidance on areas for improvement, but at the same time can be used to drive real-time action, during live customer interactions. Agile real-time digital insights need to be implemented to help businesses leverage the power of analytics to inform the actions they should take immediately and now, personalizing interactions, increasing efficiency and creating extraordinary customer experiences.
In 2021, these three areas of Agility will provide the elements necessary for Service Organizations to succeed in a constantly changing world.
