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The way we work is changing. The ongoing evolution in the access to mobile solutions, new collaboration tools and the increase in reliance on cloud-based applications has radically changed where and how we work and even what we produce. New technologies are increasing our expectations of the availability of applications and the speed with which we can receive information.
I’ve recently been exploring this subject with companies operating global customer service operations. They’re recognizing that these changing expectations are occurring among both their customers as well as their employees and that the contact center systems we provide need to align with these new expectations.
One of the conclusions we’ve come to is that the agent experience has a direct impact on the customer experience. Applications that don’t perform well, systems that are designed to lock agents into a fixed process, solutions that don’t allow agents to share and grow their expertise no longer meet the needs of today’s contact centers. More importantly they no longer meet the expectations of customers and the agents serving them. We’re helping leading companies redesign their work by deploying scalable contact center solutions for use across their service operations, something I discussed last week on a webinar hosted by MSDynamicsWorld.
At the recent Argyle Executive Forum focused on Customer Care, I had the opportunity to represent Avanade and the work we are doing around contact centers leveraging Microsoft Dynamics CRM. We spoke with senior leaders in charge of customer care for enterprise organizations; companies that are engaged in raising the level of customer satisfaction. You can take a look at the perspectives we shared at this event by checking out the conversation paper.
Going into that Argyle Executive Forum event on customer centricity, I’d half expected my thoughts on the importance of agent experience to receive a tepid response. But the theme of agent experience arose again and again. Panelists and speakers across industries highlighted the importance of proper training, tooling and motivation among their customer facing workforce. It was clear that the success that we’ve had as an industry in embracing self-service technologies has changed the nature of contact center work. Where customers once expected only speed and rapid fire, low skill service, they now expect expertise and flexibility in problem solving.
The redesign of the contact center has forced us to rethink what it means to be customer-centric. With gamification, peer based coaching tools, social collaboration and high performance user experiences, Avanade is helping organizations elevate their most important customer interactions – the ones between their customers and their employees.
How are you transforming your customer interactions?
