Ahead of Call and Contact Centre Expo 2019, which runs 27th – 28th March at the London Excel, I spoke to Julien Rio, Head of Marketing for RingCentral Engage about his upcoming session and the importance of messaging and multiple channels in the contact centre.
Tell me a bit about your session at Call and Contact Centre Expo this year?
“My topic is ‘How to jumpstart your omni-digital strategy’. We’re going to explain what omni-digital is all about and why customers now have digital habits when it comes to communication – and why it’s extremely important to include in your contact centre strategy. I’ll then address pitfalls and introduce how complex the obstacles are and how to overcome them.
It starts with understanding who you customers are. It's not about being available on every channel, but understanding what your customers need and find the right mix of traditional and modern digital channels.
Once you’ve decided which channels, it’s not just about being on those channels but offering a consistent customer experience across all those channels. You don’t expect a different brand voice per channel – everything needs to be unified. It sounds simple, but to deploy it can be extremely complex if you did not prepare your transition carefully."
How important do you think messaging is for contact centres?
I asked Julien whether messaging is going to be a passing trend or the absolute future. “Absolutely not a passing trend. Very seldom do you just phone someone. You know that people have complicated agendas, so you respect that and message them.
Messaging is so hot right now. You have all the power when you send a message. In 2016, we were talking about messaging but that was mostly Facebook Messenger. Now we have WhatsApp and iMessage as well.
When you send a message in your personal life, you fully expect that companies adapt to your behaviour. Everyone is using it. Even more traditional generations tend to adapt because it’s so convenient and has such a great user experience”.
Is it just millennials driving this change of communication behaviour?
“No, it’s broader than that. The trends we see go up to 65 years old when people are using it. It is obviously incredibly hot when it comes to millennials. It’s awkward and inconvenient to make a call if you’re a millennial. But that’s reflected in all ages”.
We discussed and agreed that multi-tasking and sending multiple interactions at the same time are different and drive productivity.
In a business world, Julien mentioned when your customers are churning. “You have so many customers that accept a small problem, without taking the time to complain because they don’t like the idea of waiting on hold for your hotline. They then leave when another bigger problem arises. If there were other channels where they could conveniently log their problem and get on with their day, you could resolve that problem, keep that customer and turn them into a channel ambassador”.
Different channels within one platform
I wanted to delve deeper into messaging, with it being such a hot topic in the contact centre industry. I asked Julien what his thoughts were on businesses receiving a public message on Twitter and asking you to hide it in DM.
“There are multiple good reasons to satisfy a customer publicly. So, it’s really for the company to decide where to address the issue. There might be a reason why the customer has decided to make it public. However, if its private or sensitive data then they need to manage and govern the processes to communicating on Twitter”.
