Consolidating the Contact Center Channels for True Multichannel Operations

By Tracey E. Schelmetic, TMCnet Contributor

If your organization runs a multichannel contact center, you’ve got everything in hand: voice and Web integrated with social media, brick-and-mortar service (if you’ve got stores) and mobile apps, right?

If you’re like two thirds of contact centers, the answer is likely “no.” Research from analyst group Forrester (News - Alert) has found that although there has been a significant shift in the way customers use the channels, particularly digital and social ones, most companies have failed to adapt. Only one-third of companies today actually succeed at fulfilling customer expectations for communicating via multiple channels. Most multichannel contact centers add new channels in a patchwork way, which means they are improperly integrated and siloed, leaving huge gaps that render them largely useless when it comes to delivering an excellent customer experience.

Companies hoping to improve customer service – or keep existing standards high –should ensure that each interaction is part of one, consistent conversation with consumers, regardless of the channel the customer chooses.

On Wednesday, February 27 at 2:00 pm EST (11:00 am Pacific), contact center solutions provider Genesys (News - Alert), together with Kate Leggett, Principal Analyst at Forrester, will present a Web event entitled, “Ending the Multi-channel Frustration: Insights into Delivering Exceptional Multichannel Customer Service.” The event, which will feature speaker Keith Pearce, VP of Solution Marketing at Genesys, will educate participants how to accomplish a number of multichannel strategies, including consolidating the various customer service channels, future proofing the contact center architecture and developing a customer centric strategy to differentiate the customer experience from that of competitors.

Genesys is well positioned to lead the conversation on multichannel integration. The company announced this week that it has struck an agreement with business intelligence solutions provider MicroStrategy Incorporated to acquire its multichannel contact center solutions subsidiary, Angel.com (News - Alert). With the cloud-based Angel platform, organizations can quickly deploy self-service interactive voice response (IVR), SMS, chat, and mobile applications to support their customers’ self-service needs.

Multichannel solutions provided by companies such as Genesys and Angel.com can help companies integrate their channels natively on the same platform rather than use the piecemeal approach so many companies struggle to provide customer service with. Angel pioneered self-service contact center offerings with a point-and-click, graphical configuration interface intended for the business user, which altered the traditional, script-based IVR platforms intended for back office programmers. Cloud-based solutions of this type are the first step toward building an integrated multichannel experience that can improve the user experience, boost customer satisfaction, expand revenue and lead to better call center agent retention.