It’s no secret that customers are demanding more flexible and digital interactions from the companies they’re buying from.
This could be via chat, video or social media, to name just a few, but the overarching theme is that customers want a better experience and companies risk losing their custom if this is not delivered.
This has to lead to a change in how people perceive customer experience, according to Mitel’s Northern EMEA VP, Richard Roberts
“When a lot of people think of a contact centre they think of lines of desks with people on the phone having transactional conversations,” he said.
“We’re so far past that now. We’ve gone from a contact centre approach to a contact experience centre approach where you can interact with the customer any way they choose.
“The customer may want to email, SMS, they may want to have a voice call and then escalate to a video call, then go back to a voice call. We can do all of that now.”
It’s important that customers can engage with businesses in the way that they choose. In the meantime, the emergence of remote and hybrid working cultures over the past 18 months has given employees a glimpse of what is truly possible at work and employee experience has become increasingly important to address for businesses.
Roberts said that business leaders now, more than ever, need to be thinking about the culture that runs through their organisation. Giving employees a better experience will have myriad benefits across efficiency, wellbeing and mental health.
“We need to move from customer experience to experience culture,” he said.
“Businesses need to understand that every interaction has got the need for an exception experience – be that with a colleague, a partner or a customer.”
From a Mitel perspective, Roberts said that the vendor is perfectly placed to enable the transition to experience culture because its sole focus is on connecting employees with each other and their customers.
“We only do communication, collaboration and contact centre,” he said.
“It’s our life; it’s in our DNA. Therefore, if we can’t move forward with the market, or even drive the market, we become irrelevant.
“We have a real culture in Mitel of innovation and leadership – but also customer intimacy in making sure that we can be the priority partnership for our customers”
“We’re nearly 50 years old now and to be where we are after 50 years requires constant reimagination, and reinvention. That’s what we do.”
