Brace yourself for some big news – people are BACK.
Yes, you read it right…in a world in which, for the last few years, enterprises have been encouraged to leverage technology in order to accelerate automation; the humble human is back in the game.
For it seems that (surprise, surprise) when customers make contact, they want the personal touch.
It’s not that many don’t love the convenience of a ‘no wait’ chatbot.
It’s not that they don’t appreciate the efficiency of an Interactive Voice Response.
No, organisations are not about to completely ditch the transformational benefits of game-changing innovation.
But it IS the case that smarter organisations are understanding that customer experience – and therefore growth – correlates with the perfect balance of clever automation and actual people power.
And it’s why leveraging the cloud to re-humanise business processes is the latest big opportunity for the channel.
“It’s about focusing more on the outcome of any interaction as opposed to the process,” says Kevin-Howe Patterson, Vice President of Product Management and Chief Technical Officer at global cloud communications provider Kandy, which has all the tools and expertise to deliver on that opportunity.
“The best outcomes are derived from processes which have made human touchpoints more efficient, but also maximised the effectiveness of human interaction.
“It’s no longer just pure logic or artificial intelligence which produces the best customer experience.
“If you think about chatbots, customers are able to type in a question and be provided with a purely tactical response based on logic, such as being diverted to a web page containing relevant information. That is very efficient, and often can be effective – for transactional interactions.
“But what if the questions become more complex, including things like, say, cost or service options. That’s when a human entering the process can add value by having a specific conversation with the customer to learn about their precise requirements and perhaps begin building an informed bespoke response.
“At that stage in the interaction it might still be a chat session, but with the ability to turn it into a voice or even a video call if required.
“Customer experience is THE most important thing to get right, which is why finding the sweet spot at which to introduce a human into the customer journey is a new science which has the potential to really differentiate.
“It’s shifting the focus from efficiency to effectiveness.”
Kandy’s white-label software can map that customer journey and optimise human intervention in an organisation’s business processes across its entire communications eco system – CPaaS, UCaaS and CCaaS.
Use cases are all very different by vertical sector and therefore customised solutions are required.
Retail versus healthcare is the perfect case in point.
Retail customers may derive high levels of satisfaction without the need for human intervention except in a small number of scenarios, such as complex service or support cases.
Healthcare customers or patients may be significantly more satisfied with an outcome if they interact with a human much earlier in the journey, say, to obtain personalized expert advice from a real-life qualified clinician.
Similarly, there can be a generational dynamic at play.
For example, younger people are more content to communicate virtually as opposed to older age groups who prefer to interact with a real person.
It’s not just customers either.
Human optimisation of an organisation’s internal HR onboarding process can also deliver improved outcomes, where basic processes can be automated, but a human touch is commonly required to complete key processes.
Apply that at scale to an organisation which may onboard hundreds of people every day, and the benefits become huge.
And there are metrics too.
Kandy is able to analyse customer journeys and measure progression and conversion rates at each key stage of an interaction.
As organisations seek the holy grail of ‘First Call Resolution’, it’s easy to see why adding a human option at any proven weak point could be highly significant.
“If customers are needing to make a second or third or fourth call, organisations are decreasing efficiency AND failing to achieve the desired outcome,” says Howe-Patterson.
“We are able to provide the tools to analyze that customer journey, surface the metrics, and then deploy a solution which optimises human intervention in a way which INCREASES efficiency and SUCCEEDS in the mission to achieve the desired outcome.”
For Service Providers and channel partners looking to add new value to a customer relationship – and increase margin-rich revenue as well – that all makes for a very compelling sales pitch.
Person to person, naturally….
To learn more about how Kandy can help your and your customers’ businesses grow, visit Kandy.
