It’s fairly commonplace now for contact centres to make use of a chatbots to try and optimise the time of agents and make it easier for people to interact when they come to the website with a specific need or looking for the answer to a question.
Another way of automating interaction is to take inquirers on a specific journey – often starting with the completion of an online for, providing details of their query that are fed into a pre-defined process within the contact centre system.
Missed opportunities
Either way, it’s the organisation fielding the call or inquiry that’s dictating how the method of interaction. While most people may be happy to follow the path laid out for them, some won’t and that can lead to problems for customer services and missed opportunities. There can also be communications issues between organisations that use different contact centre and connectivity solutions. Processes and established practices will differ, making it harder for individuals to connect and collaborate.
These challenges make it much harder to apply automation effectively and reap the intended rewards of improved efficiency and improved customer service. They are encountered by a surprisingly large number of organisations, as Caspar Hendriks, Director Global Sales at Pridis, creator of the Connecsy Cloud attendant console, told us.
“There is a lot of pressure on contact centres to automate. But doing that can force the customer or incoming caller to use a specific application or download a different tool. We also see a lot of organisations having to switch between platforms as they connect with different organisations. You can end up using multiple communications agents.’
Found in translation
Pridis is addressing this challenge by providing what is effectively a translation service between different platforms. It is now offering to tailor Connecsy Cloud installations to make it possible for external users to be given the choice of using an alternative or their preferred messaging platform, while agents continue to use the functionality and processes that are built into their contact centre solution.
Someone coming to a contact page on a website, for example, when encountered with options to fill out a query form, follow a process, or interact with a chat-box, could also be given the option to use WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, or Twitter, for example. Their message would be taken by Connecsy Cloud, converted for the internal platform and forwarded onto the recipient. The same
process in reverse would happen when the agent replies. Multiple comms channels can be supported.
Preferred method of engagement
It’s an ingenious yet simple idea – and while the interfaces between the apps do need to be tailored the to the specific platforms, contact centre apps and processes, Hendricks is confident that Pridis can provide links between just about any set of platforms.
“By giving customers the flexibility to use their preferred method of engagement, while your agents continue to use the internal messaging system, you are prioritising co-ordination and providing a better customer service”, said Hendriks.
Pridis has developed interfaces that enable this kind of interaction for a number of its customers and is now making it more widely available to Connecsy Cloud customers. The console works with a number of popular contact centre systems, including RingCentral and Avaya Cloud Office. There is also a native version for Microsoft Teams.
