Digital transformation should be more than an aspirational goal or buzzword. For businesses to succeed and stay ahead of competitors into the future, it's critical to commence a relevant digital transformation journey that will grow and change with an organisation and its environment.
For many businesses that leverage contact centres, digital transformation will typically involve a two-pronged approach; a contact centre operations strategy coupled with a technology deployment strategy.
However, it's becoming increasingly evident that a third process must be included to ensure business growth and success: a customer experience (CX) strategy.
Defining a CX Strategy
A defined CX strategy ensures that an organisation takes a holistic digital transformation approach that goes beyond the contact centre's traditional boundaries. It lets businesses drive customer experience-led initiatives which, if implemented correctly, will:
- win new customers
- retain existing customers
- increase revenue growth through cross-channel, cross-device interactions.
Put another way, digital transformation is now critical to delivering impressive and sustainable customer experiences.
A CX strategy must be tightly integrated into contact centre initiatives and through dedicated CX leaders who can drive the strategy to achieve the best outcomes.
Bringing the customer to the centre of everything
It can be easy for businesses to leave the IT team in charge of selecting technologies that will deliver efficiencies and reduce risk when it comes to digital transformation. However, what's the IT team value, may not be the same for the wider business and, crucially, may not relate to customers and how they engage with a business.
An IT team may be looking to prioritise cost-effective technology solutions and integrate efficiently with the existing technology stack deployed across the business. While this is commendable, it often ignores customers' evolving needs and may not empower its employees in their desire to meet customer expectations.
While the most cost-effective solution might offer the flexibility that the IT team needs to facilitate streamlined digital transformation, it may not provide the omnichannel solutions enhanced interactions that customers now expect from businesses.
Without weaving a dedicated CX strategy into the broader business strategy for digital transformation, organisations risk becoming more disconnected from their customers, leading to decreased customer loyalty, engagement and potential revenue loss.
Consumers increasingly expect to choose their preferred channel of communication when transacting with businesses, along with the option to move seamlessly from channel to channel as desired.
The same can now be said for customers looking to engage with an organisation via the contact centre. In the context of CX, the traditional contact centre, or call centre, is no longer a fundamental organisational structure or functional definition – forward-looking organisations are now presenting service through engagement centres.
For many customers, the ability to transition seamlessly among channels is a natural way of communicating. As part of this, they also expect the history of their conversations to move between the channels. This means that all aspects of the organisation that engage with a customer also need to engage with each other.
Failing to do this will create a fractured experience for a customer, where they may need to explain their situation repeatedly to different agents or be forced to use channels outside their preferences for communicating. The customer's journey becomes crowded with roadblocks, loopbacks and restrictive interaction choices,
The third pillar of transformation: CX
To this end, CX must be included as an integral component of the digital transformation strategy from the outset, even driving the overall programme. This means that organisations must align their technology and the needs of their business and the expectations of their customers, both present and projected.
Businesses need to engage with diverse teams that cross the traditional business verticals to help develop and implement a complete digital transformation strategy. They can achieve this by building multi-disciplined teams to combine the expertise of those responsible for the firm's technology platform strategy, the evolution of contact centre operations, and a CX strategy.
These teams will oversee the adoption of tools and technologies that will underpin the business to achieve strong returns on significant investments in digital transformation and deliver a true Engagement Centre. This means all business arms working together to meet a common goal without dismissing anyone crucial part of the overarching business strategy.
This approach also helps organisations to break down silos leading to better business decisions. Such decisions are crucial to ensuring the team sets a path that meets every component of the digital transformation strategy, addressing cost-effectiveness and efficient integration within the technology stack.
At the same time, these decisions must not dismiss the firm's business needs or the needs of its customers. It can be challenging for businesses to know the first step to take on their transformation journey, mainly if they are not familiar with options for developing a contemporary CX strategy and exploiting future-ready solutions infrastructure.
Working with a dedicated customer experience and engagement centre solution provider, an experienced implementation partner, can help you achieve better business continuity and set your organisation up for success on its digital transformation journey.
Further information
NICE works with Optus to help Australian organisations on their transformation journeys from start to finish, ensuring they identify and implement the ideal solutions to help drive their businesses forward.
For more information on how NICE and Optus can help build your future Engagement Centre, contact the team today.
About Author
This guest blog was written by Cameron Adams, Director - CXone practice, NICE, and Kirsty Hunter, customer experience practice leader, Optus Enterprise.
Kirsty Hunter is the Customer Experience Practice Leader for Optus Enterprise. Kirsty works collaboratively with Optus teams and partners, bringing success and value to customers by connecting people and technology solutions and enabling organisations to realise their customer experience aspirations.
