If your agents don’t have the right collaboration tools to quickly resolve customer issues, there is a real cost when it comes to poor customer service.
In fact, “Businesses are losing $62 billion per year through poor customer service,” according to Forbes. This shattering statistic is a wake-up call for many businesses, especially those that have antiquated contact center technologies.
Overall, collaboration tools help agents get fast answers to customer queries by enabling improved communication between the contact center and subject matter experts throughout the organization. The result can include faster resolution times and ramp-up period for new agents, plus improved customer relationships.
Since we know the value of good customer service, let’s jump into how collaboration enables your call center agents.
Enable Interactions with Experts and Teams In The Contact Center
Introducing collaboration into your contact center can allow you to include experts and teams within your organization. This allows agents to easily message subject matter experts during a live customer interaction to get problems solved quickly.
Easily Share and Collaborate Online Documents
If your agents can easily access the files they need to resolve a customer issue, the chances are they can better serve the customer. You can leverage cloud storage tools like Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, or Dropbox to enable reps to access what they need in real-time. Or, your agents can easily share files, documents, or pictures via drag and drop in order to collaborate.
Collaborate with Contact Center Customers
Agents should be able to invite a customer to a collaboration session through email or SMS, for example. Or by using voice interaction capabilities, agents can move an entire conversation to chat or the customer’s preferred channel of communication for resolution.
Reunited And It Feels So Good
In the event an agent loses connection with a customer or they wish to reconnect with that customer at a later time, they should be able to easily embed call links in conversations, allowing the customer to reconnect quickly with the right agent.
Screen Sharing and Desktop Control
Your agents can resolve problems faster when customers are willing to share their desktop or allow remote desktop control. This is especially helpful for software companies, for example, with agents that are trying to resolve a customer issue in real-time.
Unite Remote Teams
For teams that are remote, they need the same access to systems and people, as the employees that are in the office. Collaboration should allow any employee, no matter where they are, to chat, text, call or video conference colleagues or customers. They should also be able to communicate and collaborate remotely as if they were in the office.
Create and Manage Tasks
Agents should be able to keep projects moving along in a timely manner by setting action items and timelines. If you can assign teams based on projects, themes or departments, agents can get the support they need to complete assignments.
With a collaborative contact center solution, you should be able to boost agent productivity, grow customer relationships, increase first-contact resolution, and speed up complex problem solving, all of which will improve your relationship with your customers while reducing operational costs.
Your Contact Center Doesn’t Need To Be So Vanilla
So maybe Vanilla was ahead of his time but your Contact Center collaboration tools fall flat like his second album. That’s OK, we are experts in both 90’s music and customer experience. We always have the time to stop, collaborate and most importantly, LISTEN. Let’s set up a time to do just that, and bring your Contact Center into the 21st century!
