How businesses are offering new digital experiences for customer service.
Digital technology is already firmly embedded in the customer service models of many businesses. Email and chat channels have been around for a couple of decades and are widely adopted. According to research by Salesforce 95% of surveyed business offer email support and 52% offer online chat. Emerging, second wave channels are also being implemented with success and provide customers with new digital experiences as they interact with organizations.
Some of these newer channels are already being offered by more businesses than the older online chat channel, likely driven by consumers' social media habits. What are these second-tier digital channels?
Here's a quick overview:
Automated assistants/chatbots
Speaking of chatbots, they can be deployed in multiple channels - online, company apps, messaging apps - to provide support. Users can speak or type commands that will prompt chatbots to perform tasks like ordering pizza or providing order status. Our benchmark research shows chatbots are gaining acceptance, but consumers want them to get smarter before they will use them regularly.
Messaging apps
Did you know six of the top ten global apps are messaging apps? Messaging apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are hugely successful and organizations that want to be where their customers are use them for customer service. Taking it a step further, businesses can add a chatbot to create a new digital experience for their customers.
Social media
When customers comment about their issues on a company’s Facebook posts or Tweet about service failures, customer-centric organizations respond or risk a public flogging. That's likely why 72% of businesses* include social media in their customer service mix. The interesting thing is that neither customers nor businesses like using social media for customer service. It seems to be a necessary evil.
Video chat
Video chat support is poised to offer new digital experiences to consumers. Although not commonly used yet, advances in smartphone video capabilities paired with the rollout of 5G just might give video chat a needed jumpstart. Video chat not only creates more personal conversations, but it enables agents to be able to see what the customer is having trouble with, like attaching cables to new hardware.
Let NICE help you provide new digital experiences for your customer.
NICE CXone is leading a new era of Smart Digital Conversations by eliminating traditional barriers to exceptional omnichannel customer experiences with new innovations across your contact center operations. Watch our recorded webinar, Digital-First Customer Service: The Future is Here Today, and learn more about how to provide the new digital experiences your customers will value.
Related resources
Any digital channel
Your customers are trying to reach you for service on digital channels – even if you’re not there yet. How many SMS text messages go to your call center phone number with no response? Who’s trying to find you on Facebook, Twitter, or WhatsApp and not finding you? Now with CXone it is easy to provide digital-first omnichannel service in all the channels your customers expect.
Personalized digital interactions: deliver native experiences in each of 30+ messaging channels, such as rich media, emojis, and other collaboration tools.
Simple to Activate: pre-integrated channels make it easy to offer to customers and agents.
Easy to Say “Yes”: simple packaging removes barriers to offering all channels to customers and agents.
Empowered agents
CXone empowers all your agents to deliver a true digital-first omnichannel customer experience by simultaneously combining all customer interactions in one intelligent inbox across multiple digital channels and voice for agents to select ("pull"), while dynamically prioritizing the most time-sensitive or real-time interactions according to service levels ("push"). All delivered in a single application – complete with full customer context, journey history, and sentiment.
Single Interface: one inbox for all digital messaging and real-time (voice/chat) channels – retaining native experience of each messaging platform.
Agents in Control: ‘pulling’ work in natural flow, while dynamic prioritization maintains SLAs – and prevents ‘cherry picking’.
Customer Card: full customer context, journey and conversation history, plus sentiment.
Holistic management
With CXone, omnichannel interactions are managed holistically, from agents to supervisors and beyond. Integrated workforce optimization, analytics, automation and artificial intelligence across digital and voice interactions ensure complete management across contact center operations.
