Frost & Sullivan finds that an integrated digital platform offers a truly unified view of the customer  

Consumers are more empowered and knowledgeable than ever before. Each customer expects the brand to anticipate their needs and securely deliver relevant content on the channel and device of their choice. Contact centers are responding by providing a “single pane of glass” to display historical customer information and predictive responses without an agent having to toggle between systems. This combination of enhanced customer experience (CX) and employee experience (EX) has become a key competitive advantage in creating brand awareness and maintaining customer loyalty. Therefore, companies worldwide are investing significantly in improving the CX and EX in an omnichannel environment.

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Frost & Sullivan’s latest thought leadership paper, Putting Customers at the Center: A 360-Degree View, analyzes how organizations can be more agile with a connected, digital platform. It recommends ways to use customer data to quickly adapt to change and proactively engage with customers.

“Sales support and technical agents are now using a wider arsenal of communication tools—voice, video, e-mail, IVR, web chat, virtual assistants, bots, collaboration and file sharing, and social media,” explained Michael DeSalles, Principal Analyst at Frost & Sullivan. “The benefits are clear: a better experience for the customer, lower times to resolution, deeper relationships, stronger loyalty and, ultimately, more sales opportunities and increased revenues. Omnichannel customer engagement is all about building relationships. This phenomenon has changed the technology needs of the modern contact center.”

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“If we have learned anything from this historic year, it is how to be relevant when delivering service. This takes into account customers’ needs as well as how to better help agents and teams with cloud computing and digital transformation via connected platforms,” observed DeSalles. “This is especially true given the COVID-19 pandemic, the challenges with the economy, and rapid change in the world of work and health.”

Some imperatives to keep in mind when switching to a digital-first model include:

• Adapt rapidly and at scale to proactively engage and be there for customers. This could mean establishing a hybrid work environment (WFH + WFO) and deploying an agile, connected and integrated digital platform.
• In a hybrid work model, leverage customer data to proactively make decisions.
• Develop and master a single view of the customer and use it to inform every part of the business. It is a matter of integrating commerce systems, marketing technology, service portals and everything related to the customer journey. This single view empowers the brand to roll out data-backed innovations.
• Digitize every part of the business. This demands a willingness to look ahead and eliminate any strategy, process or technology that does not support the customer’s needs.

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