Transforming the customer experience with digital-first omnichannel customer service.
Customer experience forms consumers' perceptions of a brand. The collective interactions a customer has with a business help those customers decide if an organization is competent, trustworthy, high quality, innovative, fun, ethical, etc. Most importantly, those interactions help consumers decide if they want to do business with an organization.
These interactions can take many forms ranging from a customer passively watching a TV ad to actively engaging with a store associate. Every touchpoint matters and needs to be thoughtfully designed and executed. This includes the delivery of customer service. In fact, how a company responds to a customer in need might just be the interaction that matters most to that customer.
Businesses now compete on customer experience and this is reflected in how they prioritize their initiatives and allocate their resources. Many are transforming the customer experience by embracing digital-first omnichannel customer service.
What is digital-first omnichannel customer service and how is it transforming the customer experience?
Omnichannel customer service means an organization's multiple support channels are integrated in such a way that customers can move seamlessly across them. Their history with the business is accessible in every channel so that, for example, a phone agent would see the email the customer sent to support earlier in the week. “Digital-first” is an acknowledgement of the importance of digital channels.
Omnichannel customer service has been transforming the customer experience because it's a vast improvement over the old model, in which support channels were siloed. If you ever experienced the phenomenon of having to explain your issue multiple times to different agents, you didn't have an omnichannel experience. And your opinion of that company probably declined because you had a poor customer experience.
Transforming the customer experience with an omnichannel approach to customer service improves several aspects of the experience, including:
Faster issue resolution
Not having to "start from scratch" when a customer switches channels means their contacts will be quicker and more efficient.
Increased personalization
Having all of a customer's data at their fingertips allows agents to better personalize interactions.
Perception of business competence
Seamless movement across channels sends a signal to customers that the business has its act together.
Reassurance that the business "knows" the customer
Consolidated data reassures customers that the business knows and values their history with the organization.
Transforming the customer experience through omnichannel customer service is our business.
NICE CXone is the market leading contact center software in use by thousands of customers of all sizes around the world to help them consistently deliver exceptional omnichannel customer experiences. Our clients have been successfully transforming the customer experience with our best in-class omnichannel platform, which includes omnichannel routing, workforce optimization, analytics, and automation and artificial intelligence, on an open cloud foundation. Watch our video, 7 Steps to Deliver Digital-first Omnichannel Experiences, and learn more about how to approach transforming the customer experience.
Related resources
Any digital channel
Your customers are trying to reach you for service on digital channels – even if you’re not there yet. How many SMS text messages go to your call center phone number with no response? Who’s trying to find you on Facebook, Twitter, or WhatsApp and not finding you? Now with CXone it is easy to provide digital-first omnichannel service in all the channels your customers expect.
Personalized digital interactions: deliver native experiences in each of 30+ messaging channels, such as rich media, emojis, and other collaboration tools.
Simple to Activate: pre-integrated channels make it easy to offer to customers and agents.
Easy to Say “Yes”: simple packaging removes barriers to offering all channels to customers and agents.
Empowered agents
CXone empowers all your agents to deliver a true digital-first omnichannel customer experience by simultaneously combining all customer interactions in one intelligent inbox across multiple digital channels and voice for agents to select ("pull"), while dynamically prioritizing the most time-sensitive or real-time interactions according to service levels ("push"). All delivered in a single application – complete with full customer context, journey history, and sentiment.
Single Interface: one inbox for all digital messaging and real-time (voice/chat) channels – retaining native experience of each messaging platform.
Agents in Control: ‘pulling’ work in natural flow, while dynamic prioritization maintains SLAs – and prevents ‘cherry picking’.
Customer Card: full customer context, journey and conversation history, plus sentiment.
Holistic management
With CXone, omnichannel interactions are managed holistically, from agents to supervisors and beyond. Integrated workforce optimization, analytics, automation and artificial intelligence across digital and voice interactions ensure complete management across contact center operations.