Businesses that place a high standard and consistent level of customer service at the heart of their strategic planning will experience better financial results. The UK Customer Service Institute’s (UKCSI) report The Customer Service Dividend found enhancing customer service could add £81.5 billion to the UK’s GDP in the space of just 12 months.
Unfortunately, the UKCSI reports that customer service levels for 2020 are lower than they were in 2019 and the lowest since 2015. Customer satisfaction levels sit at 76.9, which is 0.8 less than in 2019.
It’s therefore increasingly crucial for enterprises to wholeheartedly invest in a contact centre as a service solution (CCaaS) to improve their customer’s experience and increase retention. For anyone unfamiliar with CCaaS, it’s an all-in-one cloud-based call centre software that facilitates inbound and outbound customer communications.
What Does CCaaS Offer?
Investing in a CCaaS gives businesses all the tools they need to provide consumers with consistently high levels of customer service. Cloud-based call centre software offers both enterprises and customers multiple ways of reaching and interacting with each other.
This solution is hosted on an internet server, so it doesn’t need to be physically present at an organisation’s premises. Enterprises can communicate with their customers via a variety of methods, including voice calls, emails, SMS messaging, video, chatbox and social media, including Facebook Messenger. Today’s consumers expect multiple options for communicating with larger companies, and such call centre software can turn that expectation into a reality.
Why CCaaS?
Using a cloud-based software solution is generally thought to be a cheaper but more practical choice for businesses. Namely, because they don’t have to buy hardware or invest in a large IT department to maintain it, so money that might otherwise have been spent on equipment and IT staff can be channelled into other areas.
Call centre software allows companies to function more flexibly, including managing and maintaining a remote customer service workforce, which reduces overheads even further.
From the customer’s perspective, they can use several channels to contact and interact with a company. An enterprise that meets its customer’s communication needs is a company that shows it cares about those consumers, and happy customers = more sales = increased profits.
In fact, the UK Customer Service Institute Customer Satisfaction Report 2020 found that 80 per cent of customers who use their preferred communication channel to interact with a company are more satisfied than those who were unable to.
From the company’s perspective, using this kind of call centre software provides access to the latest real-time technology. For example, calls being distributed automatically via AI call routing to in-house or remote customer service staff.
Also, the right CCaaS solution will come with analytics, such as customer data and can produce reports on customer relationship management (CRM). This should give you a better insight into how quickly and successfully customer queries are dealt with.
It also enables communication via SMS and outbound dialling. Any company wanting to increase its bottom line is going to need insights into its customer’s habits and behaviours. Such call centre software offers that opportunity.
Improve the Customer Experience With CCaaS
Adopting a space-saving and low-maintenance multi-channel customer service solution allows businesses to offer a more integrated, faster and more efficient customer service strategy that keeps up with today’s customers 24/7 expectations.
Call centre software provides the tools organisation’s need to monitor their relationship with customers, improve staff performance, productivity and response times. It’s the easiest way of combining all the different communications tools in one unified solution.
