AI and automation are transforming customer journeys
Customers want a smoother service
Human advisors in contact centers need extra support
Traditional contact center technologies are merging with the customer engagement center market
Traditionally, customer engagement technologies have been largely polarized – either a CRM-based customer engagement operation with a largely siled contact center, or a dedicated service center, either a more contact center-focused operation with basic on-screen links or advisors tasked with finding data manually.
But today, customer experience (CX) teams can no longer afford to remain isolated in their contact center, service desk, or CRM system.
The pressure on brands to differentiate themselves through their customer experience makes all CX technology decisions made today even more important.
That's why it's critical that organizations move quickly to align their technologies so they can deliver a unified, end-to-end customer engagement experience.
How brands manage their customer data is also critical.
Technologies such as AI, machine learning, and natural language speech recognition are already embedded in contact centers, and their data helps power cross-functional customer data platforms and digital experience platforms.
Implemented in the right way, AI and automation will provide new ways to free up CX resources and help brands make smarter decisions (turning customer journeys into a source of insights insights that ultimately drive richer experiences for customers).
The good news is that some of the key technologies already used in the contact center world are being connected to other parts of the organization.
CPaaS communication platforms and cloud contact center capabilities are increasingly overlapping, making it easier for CX teams to use APIs and programmable components to develop their next-generation customer engagement capabilities .
This makes it much easier to add a set of channels and manage customer journeys across multiple departments.
This also makes it possible to benefit from the best capabilities of artificial intelligence.
As the lines between contact centers, CRM, AI, and automation blur, brands have an opportunity to create and deploy the kind of customer engagement that can truly help differentiate customers. 'client experience.
How the contact center, AI, automation and customer relationship management landscape is converging
Extend CX leadership beyond the contact center
Instead of just focusing on traditional business requirements, CX digital transformation projects typically have a much broader scope – going beyond the contact center to encompass all aspects of engagement.
This requires seeing the big picture of the customer journey and being able to gather very detailed insights into what really drives the customer experience.
Three particular factors – the internal evolution of the company and the global responsibility of CX initiatives, the tighter integration of suppliers and the increased technological convergence – combine to take CX beyond the contact center and encompass the end-to-end customer journey.
Recognizing the expanded influence of CX, it's no surprise that many organizations are moving into leadership roles with a broader mandate to help drive cross-departmental CX projects to success.
Analyst firm Ventana Research estimates that by 2024, three out of four large companies will have executives such as a chief customer officer (CCO) or a chief experience officer (CXO). experience officer), whose responsibility will be entirely assigned to the customer experience.
These leadership positions reflect the increasingly important role of CX as a differentiator and recognize the value that transformational CX projects can have in helping to achieve business goals,
such as reducing churn and increasing customer spending.
Given the importance of these goals, CCOs and CXOs simply cannot accept or allow harmful disconnects within their customer journeys.
Inevitably, this CX-focused leadership will begin to impact many operational silos and different stakeholders, which can easily lead to disconnects in extended customer journeys.
CCOs and CXOs know the importance of different perspectives in customer service, but they must submit to the engagement needs of the company's customers.
In fact, customers don't really care who runs the CX at a company, they just want to be able to have a great experience every time they come into contact with the company.
The industry is moving towards supplier convergence
Vendors of CRM, AI and automation and contact center technologies have always recognized the adjacency of their respective technologies.
However, the gap between CRM software suites and traditional systems was previously considered too wide.
Lately, however, there have been clear signs that vendors want to close the gap themselves, not only through alliances but also through significant investment.
When a global cloud leader specializing in customer experience orchestration announced a $580 million funding round, it became clear that the funding round was led by the world's largest CRM vendor, with the support of a specialist in conversational AI, among others.
The investment recognized that customer expectations continue to rise exponentially around personalized, empathetic and connected experiences, and that truly integrated digital and human experiences will require input and collaboration from multiple phases of the customer journey. .
Previously, contact center technology vendors felt that CRM, ITSM, and enterprise vendors didn't really understand the specific needs of contact centers.
However, it is increasingly recognized that these disciplines are not only complementary, but that they are all essential to successfully respond to the “experience as a service” market opportunity.
Technological convergence is accelerating
Over the past 20 years, most organizations have integrated their CRM and contact center by simply transferring customer phone numbers to the contact center agent's desktop for basic identification purposes. .
It's not very advanced, but it's been positive for both clients (who feel recognized) and advisors (who get a head start in their conversations).
Add another question to help quickly confirm customer identity, and contact centers save a lot of call time while clearing the way for great interaction.
But customer expectations are rising, and most CX teams know that basic CTI integration isn't enough to support voice, let alone exploding interactions across channels like live chat, virtual assistants and knowledge-based bots.
And since many simpler interactions are now handled through self-service channels, that certainly isn't enough to support the much more complex conversations that are already taking up more and more time for contact center advisors.
The convergence of broader CX capabilities, CRM, AI and automation, and contact center technology is expected to empower brands with the technologies and data needed to deliver an engaging experience. unified, end-to-end client.
And with the rise of CPaaS (communications-platform-as-a-service) technologies, we are now seeing the disappearance of traditional silos as brands seek to unify their customer experiences.
What can prove challenging, however, is identifying customer engagement technology specialists who can demonstrate their innovation and capability across contact centers, CRM, AI, and IT. automation and CX disciplines.
To read the white paper Taking CX Performance to the Next Level – Why the Convergence of Contact Centres, AI & Automation and CRM Matters automation and CRM is important”) in its entirety, see the Sabio website.
Tim PickardTim Pickard
By Tim Pickard, Director of Marketing, Sabio Group
