Assessing your Contact Center Solution

In a recent study, “The Global State of Customer Experience,” a survey of leaders concluded that across industries and segments, the number one priority for enterprises was building a customer-first culture, a close second was linking customer experience to ROI[1].  Nearly 40% of respondents indicated that as a top priority.  

In the federal government, the Office of Management and Budgets has defined guidance to federal agencies in establishing a customer experience framework, in step with the president’s agenda to vastly improve citizen experience across agencies.

In any customer facing business, or citizen facing agency, one of the most significant steps to making a vast improvement to the customer experience is by investing in the contact center.  Aetna’s Bill Jetter, President of Medical Transition Services, understands this all too well. He shares his thoughts and experiences on vendor assessment and Aetna’s pursuit of exceptional customer service.

At NICE CXone we are inundated with RFP’s for contact center. Our sales and engineering teams spend the large part of their days talking about contact center in the context of customer experience.  

A few thoughts on seeking out a solution:

• Understand your goals – it’s easy to slip into a feature-first mindset when it comes to assessing vendors. Contact Centers have evolved significantly in the last several years. Know what you’re trying to improve. Are you Customer Sat scores low? Too many call abandons? Let those variables comprise the tip of the arrow for your inquiry with vendors. It helps keep your engagements relevant and the sales teams you are engaged with connected to why you sought them out to begin with.
• Know what you don’t know – you may have issues that you are trying to solve with your current contact center infrastructure that may be solved easily or may require a more complex engagement to solve. Be open to new ways of doing things
• Understand the vendor - ensure that the vendor you are working with is focused (if not fixated) on solving customer experience, many vendors offer contact center services as part of a much broader portfolio, raising concerns of focus and investment
• Understand the total cost – when determining ROI, make sure you understand the impacts to your operational budget. A higher price tag does not necessarily equate to a higher total cost of ownership (TCO).For instance, adding multiple digital channels like chat and social may add to the price of the solution but it may substantially reduce the voice traffic in your contact center – a win for any operational budget.

Check out our video series on contact center best practices to learn firsthand from NICE CXone customers on everything from vendor assessment to operational excellence.  Hear from Aetna’s Bill Jetter, President of Medical Transition Services on vendor assessment and read more about Aetna’s pursuit of exceptional customer experience in our case study.

[1] The Global State of Customer Experience 2019, Maritz CX