How to Get to Omnichannel Without Abandoning Your Telephony System
By now, it’s become pretty clear that the customer matters most.
Call centers can increase revenue by as much as 25 percent by increasing customer retention by as little as 5 percent.
So it’s no wonder why contact centers have turned to omnichannel strategies within their organizations. After all, omnichannel service is customer service
Just make sure you have the right definition for omnichannel at the start:
An omnichannel strategy helps guarantee that all call center channels, across both digital and voice, are generating the types of experiences that encourage customer loyalty and create seamless customer service at all times.
But what’s the best approach for creating a true omnichannel experience if you’re committed to keeping your current telephony system?
Read on to find out.
The Common Paths to Going Omnichannel
If you’re a call center leader interested in creating an omnichannel platform, conventional wisdom typically points you in one of two directions:
Option 1
Forklift out your entire communication stack (going from legacy premise to omnichannel) and replace it with a combined solution that marries voice and digital together.
Things to consider: From the end user’s perspective it’s often difficult if not unrealistic to strip out and start from scratch with a new platform. A large amount of time and money has been invested in current solutions, not to mention the training you’ve dedicated to bringing technical resources and agents up to speed. It is often a very scary change when considering the number of processes and data dependencies premise-based integrations have within a current operation. Change is naturally difficult on most humans but when you start to dive into the rats’ nest that often exists within current infrastructure and systems it becomes daunting, to say the least.
Option 2
Select best-in-breed providers, a la carte, for every channel across digital and voice for a comprehensive omnichannel customer experience.
Things to consider: Stitching a collection of solutions together from a handful of providers, such as chat, voice, social media, SMS, etc., and then integrating them all into your voice solution and/or CRM can be a time-consuming endeavor. Multiple platforms must be researched, selected, paid for, integrated, and then onboarded before you start seeing the return on your investment. All of the data must be normalized and channel switching can often become very difficult, impacting the customer experience significantly.
While these are options to explore, they don’t resonate with call center leaders that are hoping to ride their core telephony system a little longer while also facilitating their digital transformation.
That’s why there’s a great third option…
The Omnichannel Approach That Makes More Sense
Many leaders are simply unaware a better option exists that allows call centers to digitally transform to a true omnichannel experience without ditching their current telephony system.
Option 3
Choose a digital omnichannel platform that integrates simply with your tech stack and allows you to maintain your core telephony platform.
Things to consider: There are omnichannel solutions that cover all the digital channels your call center needs without overlapping into voice, which is a great option if you’re not quite ready to forklift in a new solution.
Keeping your system of record or CRM at the center of your omnichannel experience is an essential requirement that this third option makes simple. By trusting a best-in-breed platform – with a digital-first focus – your telephony system can be a feature of your omnichannel strategy, not a liability, and help you deliver better outcomes for both customers and call center agents.
We are not saying that in every scenario you should hold onto your current telephony platform, but if you do need to keep it alive for a few years, know that there’s an alternative you may have overlooked.
Time to Connect Your Voice System to a True Omnichannel Platform
Not sure where to start?
Cloud Call Center Search can help you find the right platform to partner with your current telephony system and give you all the benefits of omnichannel experiences.
Our call center experts have extensive knowledge of the omnichannel partners that work best across any call center environment.Interested in your call center stack? Let our industry experts offer you a no-risk, free consultation on the cloud platforms they recommend for integrating your current telephony environment for a true omnichannel solution.
